WELCOME to formΓÇóZ, the 3D form synthesizer. The following paragraphs summarize the basic features of the system, but leave many details uncovered. More information about specific tools and commands can be obtained by selecting the respective item under this Help environment. For a complete presentation of the formΓÇóZ features you should consult your User's Manual.
formΓÇóZ is primarily a general purpose solid and surface modeler that offers you the tools to generate, manipulate, and sculpt objects in 3D space. formΓÇóZ also contains a drafting environment where images of models produced in the modeling environment can be composed, refined, and annotated. The drafting environment has its own independent set of tools that can be used to produce additional drawings locally. These include a variety of line drawing and editing tools, associative dimensioning, symbol creation and placement, hatching, and text.
The basic types of modeling objects are thesurfaces and the solids. A surface object can be a simple open or closed line or a meshed surface. An object is solid when it is completely enclosed, which makes it well formed. Variations of these basic types are the surface solids, which are two-sided surfaces that are completely enclosed but contain no volume; the enclosures, which can be surface or solid objects, are double line ("wall") objects that contain space; the controlled curves and the controlled meshes. The latter two are curved objects which internally carry the control parameters that generated them and thus their forms can be easily changed after their initial creation.
You communicate with formΓÇóZ through the menu bar commands at the top of the screen, the tool palette (iconic menu ) on the left, floating palettes dedicated to particular operations, and the window tools found on the lower margin of each window. The red number in the same margin is the memory box that informs you about the computer memory currently available to your session. A variety of dialog boxes are also used to set parametric options. The dialog that affects a tool can be invoked from the tool by clicking on its icon while pressing the option key. The dialogs can also be invoked from menu bar items, primarily from the Options menu.
Pressing the mouse on an icon of the tool palette pops out more icons, any of which can be selected by dragging the mouse to it. Dragging the mouse beyond the last icon tears off the icons as an independent palette that can be positioned anywhere on your screen. You can also turn icons off and shorten your tool palette. This is done in this Help environment. After you invoke the modeling or the drafting Help window, you can turn a tool off or on by double clicking on its icon.
The colored rows in the tool palettes contain modifiers that set the mode under which the action producing tools, shown in black and white, operate. The tools on the first row tell the program what type of an object to generate. On the 4th row are the Topological Level modifiers: point, segment, outline, face, object, group, and hole/volume. formΓÇóZ has the ability to apply most of its operations to any of these levels.
All objects can be generated graphically or through numeric input. Input is relative to an active reference plane, which can be one of the Cartesian planes, or a plane you generate somewhere in 3D space. You may switch reference planes from the window tool palette or from the Reference Planes palette. Arbitrarily positioned planes may be defined using the Define Arbitrary Plane tool on the last row of the tool palette. Numeric input is entered through the Prompts palette that also instructs you about the steps required for the execution of an operation.
formΓÇóZ is organized in projects. Each project has its own windows. There are two types of windows: modeling and drafting windows.
Whenever you attempt to execute an inappropriate operation, formΓÇóZ beeps and posts an internal message. To read the message and the cause of the refusal click on the "?" window tool.
