The shape file format

A shape has to be a fully enclosed volume, if you use the built in shape discretizer this will be done for you automaticity. However if you are building shapes by hand you will have to enforce this condition. Each shape directory contains the following files

Table: The files within a shape directory

File name	Description
data.json	Holds the configuration for the shape file
image$\_original$.png	backup of the imported image
image$\_out$.png	The final processed image
image.png	The imported image which may be modified.
shape.inp	The discretized 3D structure.

The png files are of images in various states of modification. The data.json file stores the configuration of the shape editor and the shape.inp file contains the 3D structure of the object. An example of a shape.inp file is shown below in . The file format has been written so that gnuplot can open it using the splot command without any modification. As such each triangle is comprised of four z,x,y points (lines 21-24), the first three lines define the triangle, and the forth line is a repeat of the first line so that gnuplot can plot the triangle nicely. The number of triangles in the file is defined on line 18 using the #y command. The exact magnitudes of the z,x,y values do not matter because as soon as the shape is loaded all values are normalized so that the minimum point of the shape sits at 0,0,0 and the maximum point from the origin sits at 1,1,1. When being inserted into a scene, the shape is then again renormalized to the desired size of the object in the device.

Figure: An example of the shape.inp file.