Add/Edit Layers, Faces, Vertices

You build up your transfer station by adding Layers made of Faces. See Chute Drawing Data Structure for what Layers, Faces and Vertices mean.

Layers

Layers are managed in the Layers table on the Chute Faces tabsheet.

Right-click the Layers table for a context menu: Add New Layer, Draw Belt..., Draw Curved Impact Plate..., Draw Discharge Head Box..., Draw Rock Box..., Draw Lower Chute..., Draw Loading Boot..., Draw Skirts..., Draw Discharge Trajectory..., Remove Discharge Trajectory, Copy Layer, Copy and Scale Layer..., Merge Selected Layers..., Adjust X,Y,Z coordinates, Rotate Layer..., Round off Vertices, Remove Duplicate Vertices, Make Face Winding Uniform and Remove Layer.
Drag a layer's row up or down the table to reorder the layers, so related layers sit together.
The Desc, LayerOn, Friction, E (restitution), Vx/Vy/Vz and colour columns are all editable directly in the table.

the Layers table's right-click context menu — The Layers table's right-click context menu

Turn a layer off to exclude it from both the drawing and the calculations. The Friction column is the wall friction co-efficient for the surface (also used to impart belt velocity to particles on a moving belt). E is the co-efficient of restitution for the surface – see Co-efficient of Restitution.

If the layer represents a moving conveyor belt, enter its velocity as X, Y, Z vector components in Vx, Vy, Vz. Break the belt speed into its vector components, e.g. a 4 m/s belt on a 15° slope (in the X axis direction) gives Vx = 4cos(15°) = 3.8637 and Vz = 4sin(15°) = 1.0353.

The colour columns are Red, Green, Blue (0–255) plus an Alpha/transparency column (255 is solid, lower values are more transparent). Type a value straight into a colour cell, or use the colour spinners and colour button above the table. The Alpha column matters most in the Transparent display mode, where it sets how see-through each layer is – see Drawing Settings.

Moving a whole layer. Right-click the Layers table and choose Adjust X,Y,Z coordinates to move every vertex in every face of the layer by a given offset – see Move a Layer.

Re-using a layer at a different size. Right-click the Layers table and choose Copy and Scale Layer... to duplicate a layer and resize the duplicate by a factor you enter – see Copy and Scale Layer.

Adjusting something you've drawn. Draw Belt, Draw Curved Impact Plate, Draw Discharge Head Box, Draw Rock Box, Draw Lower Chute, Draw Loading Boot and Draw Skirts each reopen with the values you last drew with, so you only need to change the ones you're adjusting. Keep the same Layer Name and you'll be asked whether to replace that layer's faces with the new drawing (the layer's friction, belt velocity and colour are kept) or add the new faces alongside them. A lower chute last drawn from a head box picks the same head box again, and follows it if the head box has been redrawn since. The remembered values are your own and apply to every project; they aren't saved in the project file.

Faces

Add a Face to a layer in the Faces table. Each layer can have as many faces as you like. The Desc column is editable directly in the table. FaceNo and LayerNo are auto-assigned by the program. Right-click the Faces table for a context menu: Add Face, Copy Face, Remove Face, Triangulate Face, Swap Face Winding Direction and Move Face to New Layer....

Removing many faces. Remove Face asks you to confirm before deleting each face. When you're clearing away a lot of faces – trimming a copied face down, say – untick Confirm before removing a face on the Settings tab to remove them straight away. A removed face can't be got back, so tick it again when you're done. The setting is your own and applies to every project; it isn't saved in the project file.

Swap Face Winding Direction. Reverses the order of a face's vertices, which swaps its front and back (see Face winding and colour). Use it when a face is shaded differently from its neighbours because it was drawn the wrong way round. The vertices don't move, only their order changes. Select several face rows first (click the row headers, using Ctrl or Shift for more than one) to swap them all in one go.

Make Face Winding Uniform. To fix a whole layer at once, right-click it in the Layers table and choose Make Face Winding Uniform. Every face in the layer is turned to face the same way as its neighbours: a mostly flat layer such as a belt faces up, and an enclosure such as a head box or chute faces inwards, the same as the Draw tools build them. A message says how many faces were changed. If the layer's faces already all face the same way, choosing it again swaps every face, so you can flip the whole layer back and forth.

Splitting a face onto its own layer. Move Face to New Layer... takes the selected face out of its layer and puts it in a new one you name. Use it when a drawing tool has grouped faces differently from how you want to work with them – taking a training plate off a drawn head box, say, so it can be moved or rotated on its own. The geometry and the face's own surface properties are unchanged; only the grouping differs, and the new layer inherits the settings of the layer the face came from.

Vertices

Add vertices for a face in the Vertices table – the X, Y and Z columns (in metres) are all editable directly. You need at least 3 vertices to form a face; if you add more than 3, make sure they are all coplanar. Do not enter a duplicate vertex within the same face – this causes erratic particle movement (see FAQ).

To find a vertex in the drawing, click its row in the Vertices table: a small magenta X marks it in the 3D view and its face is outlined in yellow. This needs Allow Face Selection ticked.

Curved surfaces can be represented as a series of rectangular strip faces. You can also draw faces in a CAD or 3D program and import them instead of entering vertices by hand.

If a face was imported from CAD with redundant or slightly misaligned vertices, right-click the Layers table and use Round off Vertices (rounds X, Y, Z to 3 decimal places) followed by Remove Duplicate Vertices to clean it up.