Quick Start Guide

Conventions

Italicized text should be typed at the command line.

Command Line Interface

These programs can be ran from the command line to perform mantenance on the SIA system and to manually execute flows

sia – used to manually execute flows contained in .job files. The syntax is sia	example.job

sia-update – used to recompile or text components of the SIA system

siam – used to recompile a tool and add it to the package

Graphical Interface

Flows can be constructed, edited and executed entirely from within the GUI. Additionally help is available for the various tools which are included with the system. This guide will explain how to load an example flow, edit its parameters and execute it.

Figure 1 - Main Window

Select “File->Open” from the menu. The project management window will open (Figure 2). By clicking on the + icons: open “Demos”, “Interactive 3D graphics” and “Flows”. Finally, highlight the “Egg carton” flow.

Figure 2 - Project Manager

The pane on the right may contain text to describe the function of the flow. These details can be edited by clicking on the “Edit” button on the upper right of the window. Click on the “Open” button and the flow will be available for editing in the main window (Figure 3).

Figure 3 - Flow Loaded in Editor

This flow contains 7 different tools arranged sequentially to produce a certain output. To execute the flow click on the green arrow in the flow tool box. This flow uses the OpenGL data viewer. It should be started automatically (Figure 4).

Figure 4 - OpenGL Viewer

The viewer allows rotation by dragging the image. Zoom can be accomplished by scrolling the mouse wheel while clicking on the arrow on the tool bar will place the viewer in interactive mode. Clicks in interactive mode act on the data point under the mouse. Note that this example does not have any interactive capabilities.

Close the viewer window and look again at the flow editor (Figure 5). Note that the job monitor in the upper left of the screen shows that the Egg Carton job has Completed. It can now be cleared from the list by selecting “Clear Completed”. Pressing the + icon in the flow tool bar will open the parameters of all of the tools. Individual tools and parameters can be expanded by double clicking on their + icon.

Illustration 1Figure 5 - Editing a Flow

2007-11-22T11:24:30