T U T O R I A L

Extruded objects

· Examining POVLABs »Tools-menu« you will soon encounter an entry called »Extruder«. The »Extruder« is a very easy to use drawing tool, that lets you create 2D-shapes, which are then extruded to 3D-obects. For example, if you draw a rectangle by entering the points of the four corners, the extrude-module can generate a cube out of it.

· The extruder-module offers a »button-menu« similar to the one in the regular POVLAB-interface. the following menu-items are availiable.

New - POVLAB keeps the last extrude-shape in a special buffer. In scenes where you have already created extruded objects and you want to create a new one, you can flush the extrude-buffer with this function to get an empty drawing window. Create - this function starts the drawing mode. You will get a crosshair-cursor to insert the corners of the polygon.

Modify - points already entered can be altered in position by using this command. The connecting line between points is redrawn automatically. Add/delete - if an already drawn shape needs some more points or if corners are to be deleted, you can use these features. Generate - probably the most important function, since it starts the extruding-process and generates a 3D-object out of your 2D-shape.

· For a quick example, let's create a simple extruded object, for example a solid steel-carrier. Step 1 - load an empty template-scene and call the extrude-module.
Step 2 - click on »create« and draw an »H«-like shape« (lying), beginning with the upper left point of the »H« (draw the first point at the crossing of two grid-lines).
Step 3 - insert the rest of the points clockwise until you are right under the first point again; after this step, you should have a shape like the one in the picture to the left.

Step 4 - press the right mouse-button to indicate, that the shape is done. POVLAB will then ask you, if you want the points to be connected; confirm this message by clicking on »ok«. 		· Now the »H« is drawn, and you can generate a 3D- object by clicking on »generate«. POVLAB now asks for an object-name and let's you choose whether the object should be closed or opened. In our case we need an opened shaped to get the H-form we want.

· After the shape was generated you are in the normal POVLAB-workspace again. Here you can scale, copy, rotate or otherwisely manipulate the extruded object. In the picture below, we have an example for the usage of extruded objects.




Plugins

· Another very interesting feature of POVLAB are the »plugins«, that can be called via the »Tools-menu«. Plugins are third-party programs, which can be used to generate objects for a POVLAB-scenes. Every plugin- module offers its own parameter-dialog, where you can make the appropriate settings for the respective shape, you want to create. The handling of these dialogs corresponds to the one in POVLAB, so there should occur no difficulties, when setting up the paramteres. After confirming the entered values, the plugin-module creates the shape, you've selected, which is then inserted into the current POVLAB-scene. Because there is a wide spread variety of plugin-shapes, we just can give you an overview of the shapes plugins can create: 

· helix-structures   · 3D-fern
· rose-like shapes   · web-structures
· several fractal based objects
For a detailed explanation and list of the plugins installed on your system, you should examine the directory »povlab\plugins« and the description-files found within.
Chapter B/Page 15
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