Objectpainter

An ObjectPainter instance draws a moving object on the drawing area. The object to be moved on the screen must be defined in the field "image file" on the preference page (see image below).

The drawing options must be set below. At first one can resize the image either with keeping the proportions or by setting width and height independently. The trajectory is the way the object takes on the screen. This way can be drawn on the screen with the specified color.

The trajectory is given by the payload of a Trajectory-Packet. This can either contain 2D or 3D coordinates discribing the way of the object. The packets are explained in the chapters 3.5 and 3.6. All semantic types the plugin instance is registered for, must be of the same type. To mix both trajectory types in one network, one must define at least two ObjectPainter instances. Anyway in case of 3D, the third dimension is ignored for illustration.

The last parameter is the update interval. As smaller this interval is, the more often the plugins illustration is updated, e.g. the more smooth is the movement of the object.

The example in the image below shows one trajectory but many little men moving on the line. Each of this little men exists because of one packet, e.g. each packet generates a moving object on the screen. In this example, all objects take the same way but this is not necessary. An object takes the way, that is defined by its appropriate tracetory packet.

The plugin requires metric positions, so an instance can not be active while an instance of the SpringEmbedderPositioner is active as well.