Chapter 7. 3D Playback

This chapter provides information about the 3dplay program.

Overview of the 3dplay Program

With 3dplay, 3dmon recordings can be played back in the same style as the one in which they was originally displayed. When 3dplay is invoked with no argument, a file selection window such as the one shown in the following figure opens and shows a list of files that match the filter "R.3dmon.*" .

3dplay File Selection

When a valid 3dmon recording is provided as an input through the command line or through the file selection window, 3dplay displays its playback window immediately. An example of such a window is shown in Sample 3dplay Display.

Sample 3dplay Display

At the top of the window is a row of buttons, much like those of a video recorder. The buttons have the following functions:

Eject

Stops playback and exits 3dplay program..

 

Annotate

Allows you to display a list of any existing recordings and to then show, modify, and delete any of those. It also allows the creation of new annotations. The technique and windows used are the same as described in the section Using Annotations .

 

Erase

Allows you to erase a recording file. When you click on this button, a dialog box pops up. It warns you that you have selected the erase function and tells you the name of the file you are currently playing from. To erase the file and close the playback console, click on OK. To avoid erasure of the file, click on Cancel.

If some other program is using the recording file at the time you attempt to erase it or if you are not authorized to delete the file, you are informed of this and are prevented from erasing the file.

Rewind

Resets the console by clearing all instruments and rewinds the recording file to its start. Playback does not start until you select Play. The Rewind button is not active while you are playing back.

 

Seek

Pops up a dialog box that allows you to specify a time you want to seek for in the recording file. You can set the time by clicking on the Hour or Minute button. Each click advances the hour or minute by one. By holding the button down more than one second, you can advance the hour or minute counter fast. Once the digital clock shows the time you want to seek for, click on the Proceed button. This causes all instruments in the console to be cleared and the playback file to be searched for the time you specified.

In situations where a recording file spans over midnight so that the same time stamp exists more than once in the playback file, the seek proceeds from the current position in the playback file and wraps to the beginning if the time is not found. Because multiple data records may exist for any hour and minute combination, use the Play function to advance to the next minute before doing additional seeks on the same time, or seek for a time one minute earlier than the current playback time.

If you are playing back from a file while recording to the file is still in progress, the Seek function does not permit you to seek beyond the end time of the recording as it were when you first selected the file for playback.

The Seek button is not active while you are playing back.

Play

Starts playing from the current position in the playback file. While playing, the button's text changes to Stop to indicate that playing can be stopped by clicking the button again. Immediately after opening the playback console, the current position is at the beginning of the recording file. The same is true after a rewind.

Initially, playing back is attempted at approximately the same speed at which the data was originally recorded. When the recording was created by other programs than xmperf, and especially if the file is produced by merging several files, xmperf may have difficulty determining this speed. This may cause the start of the playback to be delayed. You can change the speed by using the Slower and Faster buttons.

While playing back, neither the Rewind nor the Seek buttons are active.

Slower

Click on this button to cut the playback speed to half of the current speed. Note that it may take a second for the new speed to become active.

 

Faster

Click on this button to double the playback speed. Note that it may take a second for the new speed to become active.

 

00:00:00

At the far right is a digital clock. It shows the time corresponding to the current position in the recording file or zeroes if at the beginning of the file. As playing back proceeds, the clock is updated.

The 3dplay User Interface

You can invoke the 3dplay from:

• the command line
• xmperf utilities
• 3dmon playback

Command Line Invocation

The syntax to invoke 3dplay from the command line is:

3dplay [RecordingFile ]

Where RecordingFile is the name of a recording file created by 3dmon. If a non-3dmon recording file is provided as input, 3dplay returns an error message and the recording file will not be played back.

Invocation from xmperf

3dplay can be executed from the "utilities" pulldown menu of the xmperf main window. The identification string to create the text shown on the utilities pulldown menu is "3-D Playback". When you select 3dplay from the "utilities" pulldown menu, 3dplay is invoked with no argument from a window as shown in the figure below.

xmperf 3dplay window

Invocation from 3dmon

The 3dplay program can be invoked from the "File" pulldown menu of a 3dmon graph window. The File menu is shown in 3dmon File Menu . When you select Playback, 3dplay is invoked with no argument.