COMMANDS OF MING

Ying-Qing Wu

The following is a list of all the available commands. All of them can be obtained be either click on the command buttons (run, smooth, add, delete) or choose from the menus. Commands are sinsitive only to the first letter. Thus, for example, "run: 10" and "r 10" will have the same effect: Both run the energy reducing process 10 times. In bellow, N will denote a number, which could be integer or real.


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NAME OF COMMAND                 EFFECT
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a N	add N vertices to the knot K.  While N is greater than the 
	number of vertices of K, the program will add one vertex for
	each edge.  Otherwise, it adds vertices to the longest edges.

A N     set the level of Antialiasing.  N is between 1 and 255.  If 
        N=1, antialiasing is off.  Higher antialiasing level will
	make the picture look smoother, but the rendering will be very
	slow if antialiasing is on.  You may want to turn it on when
	using "snapshot" to record knot pictures.

c N     set the color perior.  Try to choose periodic from "color"
	menu, and enter the command "c 3" to see how the color is 
	changed.

d N     delete N vertices from the knot.  The program will delete
	a vertex only if it does not change the knot type.  When no
        vertices can be deleted in the obvious way, and if "add pinch
        force" is on (default), it will pinch one of the edges, and 
        then try deleting again.  

e N	set the edge radius.  N can be real number.

O f	Open the file "f".  An alternative to the "open file" dialog.

p N     set the pinch edge.  If pinch force is turned on, the program
	will try to pinch this edge to a point in order to remove a 
	vertex.  Set "p -1" to choose the edge having greatest angles
	to its neighbors (default).

P N     set Pixel per inch when saving the knot picture as a 
	postscript file.  Default is 150.

r N     run the energy minimizer N times.

s N     smooth the knot.  It will run the energy minimizer N/vnum 
        times (vnum=number of vertice), then add vnum vertices and 
        run again, until vnum > 150.

s	Same as "s 1000".

S f	Save the knot to file "f".  An alternative to the "Save file"
	dialog.

t N	If "render" menu items is set to "tube", this command will set
	the number of sides for the tube.  For example, "t 3" will set
	the cross section of the tube as triangle.  If N is larger, 
	the tube will look smoother, but it will slow down the render
	process.  The default value is 16,and the maximum is 32.