New Frame Tab

In addition to the Main Frame where 4DLab renders the plots and surfaces, you can invoke more frames to draw more pictures on the same screen.

There are two tabs:

(1) 3D-Subspace Tab

Pressing the Create button will bring one more drawing window like the Main Picture window.

(4) 3D-Subspaces Tab

Pressing the Create button will bring four more drawing windows like the Main Picture window.

Remarks: 

When we have more than one frame for plotting functions,  some attributes can be assigned to particular frames and the stay with that frame no matter if to other frames we assign the same attribute with another value. For example, the background color. Each new frame can have its own background color. The point to stress is this: a change in the background color of a frame does not affect the back color of other frames when we active those other frames. We will call those attributes session permanent attribute, while those that change when a frame is activated will be called volatile.

Session permanent attributes. The following attributes are not affected by other by other windows having the same attribute.

• Each window can have its own dimensions. That is, one frame can be  a square of 300 x 300 pixels while another be a rectangle of 250 x 360 pixels.
• Each window can have its own background color. One frame can be of black background while another can be white.
• Each window can have its own viewing distance. One can be set at 100% and the other at 50%.
• Some windows can be rendered with solid frame while others can be rendered in wireframe.
• Each window can have its own axes visibility. One frame can show the picture axes while another frame may show the plot without the axes.
• Every one of the pictures can be independently copied to the clipboard.
• Each one of the picture frames can have their own background picture.

Session volatile attributes. The following attributes are inherited from the last windows activated.

• The surface map. Activated windows will inherit the new mapping texture if they apply.
• The plotting function or equations. Activated windows will inherit the new equation set.
• The center of coordinates. Activated windows will inherit the last center of coordinates as soon as they are activated.
• Y-axial light. Activated windows will inherit the light color as soon as they are activated.
• Axes labels are copied and transferred from one frame to another.

Clear Active Picture

Clicking on this menu will erase the picture on the active frame, that is, if the are three opened windows and you clear the third one, the first two will remain intact.

Clearing a picture from a frame erases the current picture but keeps its background color, or background picture.

Load Configuration

Clicking on this menu will open the window to bring a previously saved configuration. The configuration retrieved will apply to the active window.

Save Configuration

Configuration files are simple and short texts that are used to simplify continuing a session in another time or to save some parameters the user may have found useful. 

A configuration file saves the Active Parameters:

• The X, Y, and Z-axes angles.
• The XZ-plane domain in terms of the maximum X and maximum Z.
• The current division per unit.
• The observer distance.
• The X, Y , and Z-axes current labels.
• The picture size in pixels/height and pixels/width.

Saving a configuration does not save a picture, that's optional. The user can save a picture an not its parameters, or may save the parameters and not the picture (this is the Save Configuration), or may save both, or may dismiss both.

The equations of a function are not saved in the Save Configuration file because the purpose of any configuration file is that it can reused with any other equation set.

As you later invoke a configuration file, it is applied to the current set of equations.

The user may build his/her configuration files like building a library of styles and apply any style to the current function, like applying formatting styles to paragraphs in the word processing programs.

Load Picture

4DLab comes with many folders for better organization of the pictures rendered by the user and those imported from outside.

The Load Picture menu brings to to the screen the Picture Viewer to the screen. This panel is divided in four tabs and three buttons outside each tab.

Pictures Tab

The default folder for saving the user generated pictures is the Pictures folder within the 4DLab folder.

Press the Picture button below to open the bring the default Windows open files navigation panel. Double click on any picture in this folder and a copy of that picture will be brought to the Picture Viewer. 

Below the picture you will see the title of the picture opened with its height and width in pixels.

The picture may be much bigger than the space available to show the picture. However, just to the right of the measures are two option buttons:

• True Size. Click this option to see the picture in its original size. The horizontal and vertical scrollbar may be of some help.
• Size To Fit. Click this option to adjust the picture to the space. However, this may cause some distortion of the picture.

To see the picture in its true size click the Picture Only button.

The two button available in this panel are:

• Use As Map. This button is to transfers the picture to the Surface Texture window. Use this button if you want to render a surface with the picture shown in the Picture Viewer. 
• Use As Background. Clicking this button will transfer the picture in the viewer to the window space in the back of the Main Picture.

Maps Tab

Just by moving the mouse over the Show Maps button will immediately open the Mappings folder inside 4DLab. 

By pressing the Show The Current Map you can compare the current map with the map in the picture window.  If you want to use it, press the Transfer To Picture button. The proceed as described in he Pictures Tab.

Textures Tab

This tab behaves similar to the Pictures tab. But the Show Textures buttons goes to the Textures folder within the 4DLab folder.

W-Papers Tab

This tab behaves similar to the Pictures tab. But the Show Wallpaper buttons goes to the Wallpapers folder within the 4DLab folder.

Remarks:

You can safely explore all the tabs and buttons of the Load Picture panel. None of the buttons or options will replace the Main Picture; this can only be replaced by clicking on it to start a graphing or rendering.

Why so many folders for pictures? This is just to help you to categorize the pictures. You can use the following criteria or your own.

As a review:

• Wallpapers are normally screen-wide picture. 4DLab allows to use wallpapers as backgrounds.
• Textures normally simulate some kind uneven surfaces. Examples are wood, brick fabric, bumps, etc.
• Maps are normally pictures of some kind of regular pattern, like tartan.  Strictly speaking, from the mathematical point of view a map is a transformation from one set of points (the domain) to another set of points (the range).  

Save Picture

This menu command opens the Windows default Save navigation panel. Unless otherwise stated, the picture selected to be saved will be stored in the Pictures Folder. This is the default folder of 4DLab for every picture saved. 

If there are more than one Picture frames open, the program will save the picture of the active window only.

Every picture is saved in the BMP format. If the user wants another format for his/her pictures then he/she must use a format conversion tool.

Save Equations

The user can save his/her rendered pictures, can save the main parameters used to produce that picture, and can also save the equations involved in that rendering or graphing. 

The Save Equations produces the same results as the Save New Equations button in the Functions -> Equation Editor. 

The equations saved can later be invoked opening the Favorites tab in the Functions -> XYZ-Space Sample Functions 

Picture Only

Any saved picture can be retrieved for examination by the user. Loading a saved picture does not replaces the current graph. For that reason, the user can retrieve a picture without being afraid of losing the current graph or surface.

The picture filename, together with it's height and width in pixels will also appear.

Active Parameters

The Active Parameters panel show some, and maybe the most important , of the many parameters that configure the current function and its graph or surface.

This windows is read-only, that is, this is not the place to make changes. It is a form so that the user can see the main values that are in effect.

This window appears via the File -> Active Parameters menu, but also appears in the File -> Save Configuration menu. 

Print

The command Print is a simple one. If there are more than one Picture panel open, this command will print the picture in the active window only. To print the pictures of more than window, the print command must be invoked for each one of the pictures you want to print.

This panel has two tabs:

Preview Tab

This tab shows how the active picture may look when printed in paper.  

Options Tab

• Surface Only. This option provides for printing the rendered graphics only, without the possible background that the Main Picture may have. It assumes a white void background.
• Surface And Background. With this option, the user gets a printing of everything that he/she sees inside the Main Picture, or the active window.

Exit

This command is to close the program. Except for a Yes/No warning message, no further questions are asked. So be sure that you save those features or graphs important to you.