Running 3DLDF

To use 3DLDF, call make run from the command line in the shell. The working directory should be 3DLDF-1.1.5.1/ or 3DLDF-1.1.5.1/CWEB. Either will work, but the latter may be more convenient, because this is the location of the CWEB, TeX and MetaPost files that you'll be editing. Alternatively, call ldfr, which is merely a shell script that calls make run. This takes care of running 3dldf, MetaPost, TeX, and dvips, producing a PostScript file containing your drawings. You can display the latter on your terminal using Ghostview or some other PostScript viewer, print it out, and whatever else you like to do with PostScript files.

However, you can also perform the actions performed by make run by hand, by writing your own shell scripts, by defining Emacs-Lisp commands, or in other ways. Even if you choose to use make run, it's important to understand what it does. The following explains how to do this by hand.

The CWEB source files for 3DLDF are in the subdirectory 3DLDF-1.1.5.1/CWEB/. They must be ctangled, and the resulting C++ files must be compiled and linked, in order to create the executable file 3dldf. The C++ files and header files generated by ctangle, the object files generated by the compiler, and the executable 3dldf all reside in 3DLDF-1.1.5.1/CWEB/. Therefore, the latter must be your working directory.

Since 3DLDF has no input routine as yet, as explained in No Input Routine, it is necessary to add C++ code to the function main() in main.web, and/or in a separate function in another file. In the latter case, the function containing the user code must be invoked in main(). Look for the line "Your code here!" in main.web.

This is an example of what you could write in main(). Feel free to make it more complicated, if you wish.

     beginfig(1);
     default_focus.set(2, 3, -10, 2, 3, 10, 20);
     Rectangle R(origin, 5, 3);
     Circle C(origin, 3, 90);
     C.half(180).filldraw(black, light_gray);
     R.filldraw();
     C.half().filldraw(black, light_gray);
     Point p = C.get_point(4);
     p.shift(0, -.5 * p.get_y());
     p.label("$C$", "");
     Point q = R.get_mid_point(0);
     q.shift(0, 0, -.5 * q.get_z());
     q.label("$R$", "");
     current_picture.output(default_focus, PERSP, 1, NO_SORT);
     endfig(1);
     

Fig. 72.

1. Save main.web, and any other CWEB files you've changed. Since these files have changed, they must be ctangled, and the resulting C++ files must be recompiled. If you've changed any files other than main.web, ctangle will also generate a header file for each of these files. If a header file differs from the version that existed before ctangle was run, all of the C++ files that depend on it must be recompiled. Then 3dldf must be relinked. To do this, call make 3dldf from the command line.

   If you've made any errors in typing your code, the compiler should have issued error messages, so go back into the appropriate CWEB file and correct your errors. Then call make 3dldf again.

2. Call CWEB/3dldf at the command line. It writes a file of MetaPost code called 3DLDFput.mp.
3. Run MetaPost on the file 3DLDFmp.mp, which inputs 3DLDFput.mp.

             mpost 3DLDFput
             

   The result is an Encapsulated PostScript file 3DLDFput.<integer> for each figure in your drawing.

4. The file 3DLDFtex.tex should contain code for including the 3DLDFput.<integer> files. This is an example taken from the 3DLDFtex.tex included in the distribution. You may change it to suit your purposes.

             \vbox to \vsize{\vskip 2cm
             \line{\hskip 2cm Figure 1.\hss}%
             \vfil
             \line{\hskip 2cm\epsffile{3DLDFmp.1}\hss}%
             \vss}
             

5. Run TeX on 3DLDFtex.tex to produce the DVI file, 3DLDFtex.dvi.

             tex 3DLDFtex
             

6. Run dvips on the DVI file to produce the PostScript file, 3DLDFtex.ps.

             dvips -o 3DLDFtex.ps 3DLDFtex
             

7. 3DLDFtex.ps can be viewed using Ghostview, it can be printed using lpr (on a Unix-like system), you can convert it to PDF with ps2pdf, or to some other format using the appropriate program.

I sincerely hope that it worked. If it didn't, ask your local computer wizard for help.

On the computer I'm using, I found that special arguments for setting landscape and papersize in TeX files for DIN A3 landscape didn't work. Ghostview cut off the right sides of the drawings. Nor did it work to call dvips -t landscape -t a3. This caused an error message which said that landscape would be ignored. When I called dvips with the -t landscape option alone, it worked, and Ghostview showed the entire drawing.

Another problem was Adobe Acrobat. It would display the entire DIN A3 page, but not always in landscape format. I was unable to find a way of rotating the pages in Acrobat. I finally found out, that if I included even a single letter of text in a label, Acrobat would display the document correctly.

• Converting EPS Files:
• Command Line Arguments: