Mouse Button Assignments

The Tool Bars
Hot Keys Special to the Zap Window
Mouse Button Function in Movie Mode
Mouse Button Function in Model Mode

The Tool Bars

• The up and down arrows step the zoom factor up or down.
• The zoom edit box shows the current zoom factor and allows one to type in a custom zoom.
• The size indicator shows the current window size, or the window pixels enclosed by the rubber band if it is on. This is the size of image that will be produced when taking a snapshot.
• The checkerboard button toggles between fast rendering and slower but higher quality image rendering, using interpolation when the zoom is greater than 1. When the zoom is below 0.8, the higher quality display uses a filter to remove aliased information, which often appears as extra noise. The smaller the zoom, the slower the filtering is, so the display may become quite slow for very large images. The high quality display is on by default when Zap and XYZ windows are opened; to have them open with the fast display instead, open the Behavior tab of the Preferences dialog and turn off "Start Zap and XYZ windows with high-quality display".
• The lock button can lock the Zap window at the current Z value. When locked, the Z value of a Zap window can be changed with controls or hot keys in the window, but that will not change the current Z value of other windows in the program.
• The centering button toggles between having the image always centered on the current model point, and recentering the image only when the current point comes near an edge (the default). When the button is first pressed, it will center the current image point if there is no current model point (i.e., if you are in movie mode or there is no current point in model mode). Thus, you can find or center the current image point by toggling this button or off, or using the K hot key.
• The modeling direction button toggles between inserting new points after the current point (when pointing up) or before the current point (when pointing down).
• The rubber band button turns the rubber band on or off. The rubber band can be used to select an area, then snapshot the area, resize the window to that area, find its coordinates, or do some operations on all contours within the area. After pressing this button or the Shift+B hot key to turn on the rubber band, position the mouse at any desired corner, click the first mouse button and hold it down while you move to the opposite corner. After initially defining the band, you can adjust its size by placing the pointer near an edge or corner and dragging with the first mouse button. The band can be moved as a unit by placing the pointer near an edge and dragging with the second mouse button.
• The lasso button turns the lasso contour on or off. The lasso can be used to select multiple contours, to mask the volume displayed by the Isosurface dialog, and to select an area within which to delete contours with values below a threshold in the Bead Fixer. When it is turned on, you can then draw the lasso contour by pressing the first or second mouse button, and holding it down while drawing the contour from one end to the other. Once it is drawn, it can be moved by placing the mouse within 10 pixels of the contour (the cursor will change to indicate that moving is enabled), then pressing and holding either the first or second mouse button while shifting the contour. The contour can also be shifted, rotated, or transformed if contour shifting is turned on with the Shift+P hot key (see below).
• The Arrow button allows you to draw an arrow quickly for pointing out a feature in the image. Press the button, then move the mouse to the desired position for the tail of the arrow, press the first mouse button, and hold it down while positioning the head of the arrow. The arrow endpoints stay at the same X/Y positions in the image if the image is panned or zoomed or stepped to a different Z. Turn off the button to remove the arrow. You can change the color of the arrow in the Appearance/Limits tab of the 3dmod Options dialog by selecting "Arrow" in the combo box and pressing Set Color For. To draw multiple arrows, you can set up an object instead, as described in the "Symbols" section of the Object Edit dialog. You can also draw multiple arrows using the Grab with Note plugin under the Special menu.
• The Z slider allows one to riffle through images or select a particular section to display.
• The section edit box shows the current section and allows one to go directly to a section by typing in a number.
• The I button brings the Information Window to the front and prints information about window and image size (see the Shift+I hot key below).
• If multiple image files have been loaded into 3dmod, three additional controls and the image file number and name appear on a separate tool bar. The time lock button will prevent changes in other windows from changing the time (image file) displayed in this Zap window, and vice-versa. The left and right arrows will step backward and forward in time.

• I toggles the modeling direction.
• Ctrl+S, Shift+S or Ctrl+Shift+S saves the Zap window, or the area inside the rubber band, into a TIFF file, a file in the primary non-TIFF format, or a file in the second non-TIFF format. (Use the menu entry Edit-Options and go to the Behavior tab to select the primary non-TIFF file format. The second non-TIFF format will be PNG if the primary one is not PNG, or JPEG if the primary one is PNG.)
• Shift+Z toggles auto section advance on and off. When this is on, the section will change automatically after inserting a point if there was a section change between that point and the previous point.
• B builds a contour when AutoContour window is open.
• A advances to and fills next section when auto contouring, or applies the current process if Image Processing window is open.
• U smooths a filled area when auto contouring.
• K Toggles the centering mode controlled by the centering button in the toolbar. Press twice to center on the current point.
• Shift+B toggles the rubber band on and off. See the description of the rubber band toolbar button above.
• Shift+I prints information about the window and image size and the coordinates of the image in the window. If the rubber band is on, the sizes and coordinates are relative to the rubber band rather than the window. The image coordinates of the lower left and upper right corners, and of the center, are printed in the 3dmod info window. There is also a fragment of a command line for extracting the image from the stack with trimvol; this is the same command used by the Extract File entry in the File menu. This key also brings the Information Window to the front of the display.
• Q reports the distance between the current image or model point and the position of the mouse. The current image point is used in Movie Mode or if there is no current model point. The two positions and 2D distance between them (in the plane of the image) are printed in the Information window. Thus, to measure a distance between two points, click at the first point with the left mouse button, move the cursor to the second position, and press Q. If pixel size varies among the sections or among multiple image files, the measurement will be based on the pixel size of the program's current section and time, and may be incorrect if you have a lock turned on and are displaying a different time or section. See Variable Pixel Sizes for details.
• Shift+R resizes the window. With the rubber band off, the window changes, if possible, to match the size of the entire image at the current zoom. With the rubber band on, it changes to the size of the rubber band and the image is shifted to display the area previously in the rubber band.
• Ctrl+Shift+R resizes the image inside the rubber band to fill the window in one dimension.
• Ctrl+A adds multiple contours on the current section to the contour selection list. Selected contours will be shown with a distinguishable line thickness. With the rubber band off, all eligible contours on the current section will be added; with the rubber band or lasso on, only contours with points appearing completely within the rubber band or lasso will be selected. Contours from the current object that are confined to the current section will be added; in addition, if the object is open contour type and the contours pass between sections, then contours with points on the current section that are all within the selection area will be added. Selected contours from other objects will be retained in the selection if they meet the same criteria; all contours on other sections will be removed from the selection.
• Ctrl+Shift+A adds multiple contours on the current section to the contour selection list, taking contours from all objects rather than just from the current object.
• Shift+F uses the image processing dialog to take a Fourier transform (FFT) with the current parameters set there for FFTs. The dialog is first opened if necessary. Another Shift+F will reset the FFT display back to the image, if it is still the current section, but if you step to another section, that one will be transformed with just a single key press.
• Shift+P Toggles a mode in which you can shift, rotate, stretch, or scale the whole current contour by dragging with a mouse button held down. The first mouse button is used to shift; the second button is used to rotate; the third is used to stretch the contour along an axis, or to scale it uniformly if the Shift key is held down. If mouse buttons have their default mappings, these functions are the same as in the Midas program. If multiple contours are selected, the same operation will be done on all of them, including contours from objects other than the current object. If there is no selected contour but the lasso is on, the operations will be applied to the lasso contour (the lasso will be drawn with double thickness to indicate that it is the target for mouse actions.) This mode stays active until toggled off again, or until the rubber band or lasso is turned on. These operations work for any contours in closed contour objects and for coplanar contours in open contour objects.
  • To shift contour(s), position the mouse anywhere, press the first mouse button, and shift the contour(s) to the desired position.
  • To rotate, press the second button and move the mouse in an arc around the center of mass of the selected contour(s).
  • To stretch, press the third button and move the mouse toward or away from the center point.
  • To scale, press Shift and the third button and move the mouse toward or away from the center point.
  • During rotation, stretching, and scaling, the center of action will be marked with a star. You can set this center by clicking with Ctrl and the second mouse button.
  • To set a second fixed point for stretching, click with Ctrl and the third mouse button. This point will be marked with a red star. Clicking again will remove the point. With such a point, moving the mouse with the third button held down will stretch the contour in such a way that the center and fixed point stay stationary and the point under the mouse pointer stays under the pointer.
• Arrow keys and the keypad: In movie mode, the arrow keys and the PageUp and PageDown keys move the current viewing point (the small cross), while the keypad keys pan the image horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. In model mode, the arrow keys pan the image, the numeric keypad arrows move the current model point laterally, and the numeric keypad PageUp and PageDown keys move the current model point in Z.
• Ins on the keypad: In model mode, this key works the same as the second mouse button. A single keystrike adds one point; holding the key down allows points to be added continuously.
• ESC will close the Zap window.

• First Button Click: Select the current viewing point, marked by a small cross.
• First Button Drag: Pan the image if it is larger than the window, or adjust the size of the rubber band.
• Second Button Click: Start movie in forward direction, or stop movie.
• Second Button Drag: Move the rubber band.
• Third Button Click: Start movie in backward direction, or stop movie.

• First Button Click: Make the nearest visible model point be the current model point. If there is no point nearby, this detaches from the current point and contour and selects a current viewing point instead. To attach to points in any object, including ones that are turned off, there is an option in the Behavior panel of the 3dmod Preferences dialog.
• First Button Drag: Pan the image if it is larger than the window, or adjust the size of the rubber band.
• Ctrl - First Button Click: Selects the nearest visible point as the current point but also adds this contour to a list of selected contours. Selected contours in this list will be displayed with a distinguishable line thickness. If a contour is already selected, Ctrl-clicking on it will deselect it. The selection list is cleared by doing an ordinary first button selection of any model point, or by a variety of other operations, mostly ones that select a different contour from the current one. Contours from more than one object can be selected with this button.
• Ctrl - First Button Drag: Adds any contours that the mouse crosses to the list of selected contours. Contours from more than one object can be selected this way.
• Second Button Click: Add one point to the current contour, or to a new contour if modeling planar contours and the point is on a different plane from the current contour. The latter occurs when modeling a closed contour object or an open contour object with Start new contour at new Z selected in the Edit-Object-Type dialog.
• Second Button Drag: Continually add points to the current contour as the mouse is moved, or move the rubber band.
• Third Button Click: Modify the current model point to be at the selected position.
• Third Button Drag: Continually modify points as the mouse is moved. This only works when the current model point is in the interior of the contour, not at its end.
• Ctrl - Third Button Click: Delete any points under the cursor in the current contour.
• Ctrl - Third Button Drag: Continually delete points under the cursor as the mouse is moved. At the end, the current point is set before the last deletion (or after, if modeling direction is inverted.)

Help Index