Included with the caret
distribution is a program named caret_command. The purpose of caret_command is to provide a command line
interface to many of Caret5Õs underlying operations.
There are several ways to run
caret_command. First, caret_command
may be run in a terminal window in which caret_command is followed by
parameters to perform an intended operation. Second, there is a graphical user-interface within Caret5
that allows the immediate execution of each of caret_commandÕs operations. Third, Caret5 contains a graphical-user
interface to a script builder that is used to assemble a sequence of
caret_command operations.
One way to run caret_command
is through entering commands in a terminal window. This is probably familiar to old Unix users and old DOS
users. For a list of caret_command
operations, run Òcaret_command –helpÓ, which will list a brief summary of
each of caret_commandÕs operations (about 160 at this time). To see a full description of each
operation, run Òcaret_command –help-fullÓ. To see a full description of a single operation, specify the
operation without any parameters.
For example, the output of Òcaret_command –surface-curvatureÓ is
shown below.
noodle 8 %
caret_command -surface-curvature
SURFACE CURVATURE
caret_command
-surface-curvature
<fiducial-coordinate-file-name>
<closed-topology-file-name>
<input-surface-shape-file-name>
<output-surface-shape-file-name>
[-generate-mean-curvature]
[-generate-gaussian-curvature]
[-mean-column-name name]
[-gaussian-column-name
name]
Generate curvature measurements for the surface.
The column names are optional, and, if not specified
are Folding (Mean Curvature) and
Gaussian Curvature
respectively.
The "input-surface-shape-file-name" does not needs
to exist.
In the command listed above,
required parameters are contained within less-than and greater-than symbols
(Ò< >Ó). Optional
parameters are contained within square brackets (Ò[ ]Ó).
Within Caret5, a graphical
user-interface to each caret_command operation is provided. To access this interface, select ÒCaret
Command ExecutorÓ from the Window menu.
The Caret Command Executor window contains several section. The section labeled Commands lists all
of caret_commandÕs operations.
When a command in this section is selected, help information about the
command is displayed in the ÒCommand DescriptionÓ section and an interface for
setting each of the commandÕs parameters is provided in the ÒParametersÓ
section. Once the parameters have
been entered, pressing the Execute push button will execute the caret_command operation.
The script builder is
available by selecting Caret Command Script Builder from the Window Menu. The script builder provides a graphical
user-interface for constructing a sequence of caret_command operations. Buttons along the bottom of the script
builder window include New (start a new script), Open (open an existing caret
script file), save (save the script in the window to a caret script file), Run
(Run the script in the window), and Close (close the window).
On the left side of each
command is a sequence of buttons.
These buttons are Add (add a new operation before or after the current
operation), Del (delete the current operation), Help (show help information
about the operation), Up (move the current operation so that it is above the
operation immediately above), and Down (move the current operation so that it
is below the operation immediately below).
Since the name of a file or
other parameter may be used by multiple commands, the script builder allows
variable to be defined using the –script-variable-set command. In addition, the
–script-variable-read command allows the script to ask the user for a
variable value. All variable names
must begin with a dollar symbol ($).
There are many operations
available from caret_command.
There are several ways to generate a manual containing all of the
commands. Within caret_command are
the operations –help-html and –help-pdf which are used to generate
a manual containing all of caret_command operations. The manual may be generated by running caret_command on the
command line or by using the Command Executor user-interface.
There are several ways to run
a script file. The first, is by
loading the script into the Script Builder and pressing the ÒRunÓ push
button. The second is on the
command line using caret_command (e.g.
caret_command –script-run file.script). If any command in the script file fails, no additional
commands are executed.
Using the operation
Ò-script-convertÓ, a caret script file may be converted to a scripting
language. Currently, caret script
files may be converted to either Bourne Shell (/bin/sh) or DOS Shell (WindowsÕ
Ò.batÓ files). A successful
strategy may be to develop a script using CaretÕs Script Builder so that it
operates on a specific set of files.
Once the Caret script is functioning properly, convert the script to a
shell script so that more complex programming structures may be added.
For commands that require a
parameter that identifies an existing column identifier, the column may be
identified by its name or its column number starting at one.
If you look through the help
commands, you will notice that there are no operations for surface shape
files. Keep in mind that metric
and surface shape files are the exact same file format. So, any operation that uses a metric
file will also accept a surface shape file.