Time Inspector and Animation View redesign

Development
21

Looks very nice, I like it ! A few thoughts :

  • maybe the TimeKeeper should not be in the Animations section but in its own “parent” line, because even though it is animatable it’s not really like other optional animation tracks imo
  • I don’t really get what is the double value next to the stride option : currently you specify how much time step you want to skip from the current until the next. But I think it can be a bit unclear what happens if you specify a time stride value.
22

I put the timekeeper inside the Animation so it can be collapsed with other tracks.

Controlling stride from an effective time value (and not just timestep) is a feature request. Still have to see how it will interact with the current timestep stride.

1 Like
23

The timekeeper can already be hidden with the advanced mode and imo this is enough. But let’s wait for other inputs.

I think the fixed time stride is a bit sketchy, but maybe it is not the right thread to discuss this.

24

The fixed time stride is an specification.
This clearly makes sense when comparing multiple “parametric” bases. To this need, the reader must take into account a request for a time that it does not contain, in this case for us, to load the nearest time from below.

Now, activating this mode can result to build a new timeline from a configurable rule at the settings level.

25

Very good design, @nicolas.vuaille.
There are still a few aspects missing in the advanced view, but that’s detail (access time by number, checkbox choose mode / swap mode by time or number). (what’s “over” ?)
The “dark gray upper timeline” is the additional timeline of the selected timebases? (The start/end of the Sequence mode define here ?)
@mwestphal

26

Hi @LEKIEN ,

Some annotations, so we can talk about same widgets.

advanced_expanded_annotated
advanced_expanded_annotated1047×375 28.9 KB

  • A: current time (floating value)
  • B: current timestep (integer step)
  • C: over == number of timestep (readonly in Snap to TimeStep, editable in Sequence).
  • D: stride in time
  • E: stride in timestep.
  • F: enable / disable the use of sources to get available timesteps. => switch from Snap to Sequence
  • G: timeline with combination of timesteps from every checked sources
  • H: start time:
  • I: end time:

D and E maybe in conflict, so the easiest way may be to make only one visible, as you suggest, and have a switch button between time value and time step mode. May also impact A and B.

H and I are editable, and should also have lock button.

1 Like
27

Perfect.
Yes, I think having the switch button will bring more clarity. I don’t really see any mixed use except for a short transition from one mode to another.

28

This is a clever way to save space, but I can also see this failing in multiple ways ways.

  • How will the option to edit the start/end values in the time bar be discoverable? The idea that 2 out of n numbers are editable in the time bar will be something that users won’t think to even try and unlikely to try by happenstance. There should be a visible indication of an editable widget.
  • If the start and end times have extra annotation for widgets, will the interfere with the rest of the display such as tick marks?
  • Regardless of how the editable property of these two numbers is visually indicated, how will you prevent that from interfering with the other clicking action of the time bar, which is to select the current time. Although there are other places you can use to select the time, allowing it in the time bar is convenient because you can do a dragging motion to scrub the video. None of the other widgets allow that.

I think we could use a more detailed mockup of the time bar to work through these issues.

1 Like
29

Hi there, some news and screenshots on the ongoing work.

Please let us know if you have feedbacks.

Temporal Sources

Temporal
Temporal1113×269 29.8 KB

Start Time and End Time have highlighted background and are editable.

Animation

Animation
Animation1113×269 32.9 KB

Here End Time is locked (different background)

Merge request

A merge request is now open, so code review can go on.

https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/merge_requests/6245

2 Likes
30

We are please to announce that this was just merged in the master branch of ParaView !

Here some screenshots of the last version:

TimeManagerAnimations
TimeManagerAnimations1080×306 38.2 KB

TimeManagerSequence
TimeManagerSequence1067×251 31 KB

31

Amazing work, @nicolas.vuaille.
Very clever the fact of exploiting the selection of “no time” to switch to frame mode.
It remains to code the displacement of this vertical blue line via the mouse. :wink:
Good job. :+1:

1 Like
32

As a last update here, and concerning developers, here is a diagram of the different new classes involved:

TimeManagerClasses
TimeManagerClasses960×720 109 KB

Some small fixes are coming, and note that the whole will be part of the 5.12 release.

1 Like