User Guide
Graphical User Interface
The GUI is the easiest way to use TexGen, in previous version a lot of TexGen features were not accessible via the graphical user interface. However considerable effort has been made to improve this, notably version 3.1 includes a modelling interface for interactive manipulation of textile geometry. For those comfortable with doing a bit of programming, the Python interface is recommended.
Layout
At the centre is a window showing a 3d representation of the textile geometry. Initially when TexGen is loaded this window will be empty, this is because no textile models will have been created yet. After creating a textile model it will become visible, if several textile models are created they will each be open in a separate tab allowing you to work with several models at once.
There are several other windows which can be switched on and off via the drop-down menu at the top in the "Window" section. By default the controls and logs windows will be visible.
The controls window is separated into various sections: Textiles, Modeller, Domain, Rendering and Python. Note that most of these controls are also accessible via the drop-down menu at the top. These controls are used to create textile models, manipulate them and control how they are rendered to the screen amongst other things.
The log windows at the bottom contains an interactive Python Console along with Python Output and TexGen Output windows. The interactive console allows the user to type Python commands and see the results in an interactive manner. This can be useful for small operations and learning how to use the python scripting interface. For inputting a large number of Python commands it is more convenient to save it in a Python script and execute it all at once.
The Python Output log window displays all the Python code executed by the GUI. Essentially every button pressed in the user interface will create a Python command. This is done by design, making it possible to record Python scripts while interacting with the GUI. If you know how to do something with the GUI, you then automatically know how to do it with a Python script because the code is displayed.
The TexGen Output log window displays log and error messages from TexGen. These generally include information on what TexGen is doing, if something goes wrong it is useful to read the log to find out what happened. Error messages will be displayed in red so that they can be easily located.
If new messages are posted one of the log windows while it is inactive, the icon above the window will change. In the case of receiving an error message the icon will change to an error icon.
Finally the outliner window which is hidden by default gives tree representation of the textile model. Which each textile is composed of a several yarns each of which is composed of nodes. This will be covered in more detail in the modelling section.
Wizards
The wizards are designed to create textile models with a minimum amount of input. Currently only the 2d weave wizard has been implemented, but plans to include wizards for other fabric types are in progress.
To use the 2d weave wizard, select Textiles from the controls window and click on the 2D Weave button. Or alternatively select Textiles → Create 2D Weave... from the drop down menu at the top. The user must then fill in the textile data as requested, tool tips for each section can be viewed by holding the mouse over the control for about a second.
Modeller
While the wizards provide an easy way to create textile models, flexibility and control over the geometry is sacrificed. On the other end of the spectrum the modeller allows users total control over textile geometry at the expensive of a slightly steeper learning curve.
To invoke the modeller select the modeller tab on the controls section and click on the create textile button. You will be prompted to enter a name for the textile, this can be left blank in which case a default name will automatically be assigned.
