NAME

       SoEngine -

       SoEngine is the base class for Coin engines.

       Engines enables the application programmers to make complex connections between fields.

SYNOPSIS

       #include <Inventor/engines/SoEngine.h>

       Inherits SoFieldContainer.

       Inherited by SoBoolOperation, SoCalculator, SoComposeMatrix, SoComposeRotation,
       SoComposeRotationFromTo, SoComposeVec2f, SoComposeVec3f, SoComposeVec4f,
       SoComputeBoundingBox, SoConcatenate, SoCounter, SoDecomposeMatrix, SoDecomposeRotation,
       SoDecomposeVec2f, SoDecomposeVec3f, SoDecomposeVec4f, SoElapsedTime, SoFieldConverter,
       SoGate, SoInterpolate, SoOneShot, SoOnOff, SoSelectOne, SoTexture2Convert, SoTimeCounter,
       SoTransformVec3f, and SoTriggerAny.

   Public Member Functions
       void evaluateWrapper (void)
       virtual int getOutputs (SoEngineOutputList &l) const
       SoEngineOutput * getOutput (const SbName &outputname) const
       SbBool getOutputName (const SoEngineOutput *output, SbName &outputname) const
       virtual const SoEngineOutputData * getOutputData (void) const =0
       SbBool isNotifying (void) const
       virtual void notify (SoNotList *nl)
       SoEngine * copy (void) const
       virtual SoFieldContainer * copyThroughConnection (void) const
       SbBool shouldCopy (void) const
       virtual void writeInstance (SoOutput *out)

   Static Public Member Functions
       static void initClass (void)
       static void initClasses (void)
       static SoType getClassTypeId (void)
       static SoEngine * getByName (const SbName &name)
       static int getByName (const SbName &name, SoEngineList &el)

   Protected Member Functions
       SoEngine (void)
       virtual ~SoEngine (void)
       virtual void evaluate (void)=0
       virtual SbBool readInstance (SoInput *in, unsigned short flags)
       virtual void inputChanged (SoField *which)
       void writeOutputTypes (SoOutput *out)

   Static Protected Member Functions
       static const SoFieldData ** getInputDataPtr (void)
       static const SoEngineOutputData ** getOutputDataPtr (void)

   Additional Inherited Members

Detailed Description

       SoEngine is the base class for Coin engines.

       Engines enables the application programmers to make complex connections between fields.

       The most common cases where you use engines are: 1) to constrain the values of a field
       with regard to the contents of one or more other fields in the scene graph, 2) as a
       convenient way to animate parts of the scene graph.

       The reference count of an engine will be increased by 1 for each connection made to one of
       its engine outputs, and decreased by one for a disconnect. See
       SoEngineOutput::addConnection() and SoEngineOutput::removeConnection(). When the reference
       count goes down to zero, the engine will automatically be destroyed, and subsequent
       attempts at using the engine will lead to a crash.

       If you want complete control over when an engine gets destructed, use SoBase::ref() and
       SoBase::unref() for explicit referencing/dereferencing.

Constructor & Destructor Documentation

   SoEngine::SoEngine (void) [protected]
       Default constructor.

   SoEngine::~SoEngine (void) [protected],  [virtual]
       Destructor.

Member Function Documentation

   void SoEngine::initClasses (void) [static]
       Initializes all engines. Automatically called from SoEngine::initClass() upon
       initialization of Coin.

   void SoEngine::evaluateWrapper (void)
       Triggers an engine evaluation.

   int SoEngine::getOutputs (SoEngineOutputList &l) const [virtual]
       Adds all outputs to list. Returns the number of outputs added to the list.

   SoEngineOutput * SoEngine::getOutput (const SbName &outputname) const
       Returns the output with name outputname, or NULL if no such output exists.

   SbBool SoEngine::getOutputName (const SoEngineOutput *output, SbName &outputname) const
       Sets  to the name of output. Returns FALSE if no such output is contained within the
       engine instance.

   const SoEngineOutputData * SoEngine::getOutputData (void) const [pure virtual]
       This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of
       interest to the application programmer.

       Implemented in SoComposeMatrix, SoComposeRotationFromTo, SoComposeRotation,
       SoComposeVec2f, SoComposeVec3f, SoComposeVec4f, SoDecomposeMatrix, SoDecomposeVec2f,
       SoDecomposeVec3f, SoDecomposeVec4f, SoDecomposeRotation, SoCalculator,
       SoComputeBoundingBox, SoElapsedTime, SoGate, SoOneShot, SoTimeCounter, SoSelectOne,
       SoBoolOperation, SoCounter, SoConcatenate, SoHeightMapToNormalMap, SoOnOff,
       SoTransformVec3f, SoTriggerAny, SoFieldConverter, SoInterpolate, SoTexture2Convert,
       SoInterpolateFloat, SoInterpolateRotation, SoInterpolateVec2f, SoInterpolateVec3f, and
       SoInterpolateVec4f.

   SoEngine * SoEngine::getByName (const SbName &name) [static]
       Returns the engine named name, or NULL if no such engine exists. If several engines have
       been registered under the same name, returns the last one which was registered.

   int SoEngine::getByName (const SbName &name, SoEngineList &el) [static]
       Finds all engines named name. Returns the number of engines added to the el list.

   SbBool SoEngine::isNotifying (void) const
       Returns whether we're in a notification process. This is needed to avoid double
       notification when an engine enables outputs during inputChanged().

   void SoEngine::notify (SoNotList *l) [virtual]
       Notifies all auditors for this instance when changes are made.

       Reimplemented from SoFieldContainer.

   SoEngine * SoEngine::copy (void) const
       Make a duplicate of this engine and return a pointer to the duplicate.

       Connections are shallow copied, ie the node or engine instance at the other end of the
       connection is not cloned. We just let the connection reference from the cloned engine
       refer to the same instance as the engine we've cloned ourselves from.

       Note that this is not the function the application programmer should override if she needs
       some special behavior during a copy operation (like copying the value of internal data not
       exposed as fields). For that purpose, override the copyContents() method. Your overridden
       copyContents() method should then both copy internal data aswell as calling the parent
       superclass' copyContents() method for automatically handling of fields and other common
       data.

   SoFieldContainer * SoEngine::copyThroughConnection (void) const [virtual]
       Return copy of this instance.

       Note: default implementation just returns this pointer, SoNode and SoEngine overrides this
       method to return the pointer to the actual copy.

       Reimplemented from SoFieldContainer.

   SbBool SoEngine::shouldCopy (void) const
       Returns whether this engine should be copied or simply referenced in a copy operation.

       Engines which are not really part of the scenegraph should not be copied.

   void SoEngine::writeInstance (SoOutput *out) [virtual]
       Writes all the fields contained in this instance to the output stream within out.

       This method is solely called from the write methods of fields.

       Either from SoField if the write is done because of a field-to-field connection, or from
       one of the fields which may actually write SoFieldContainer instances, i.e. SoSFNode,
       SoMFNode, SoSFEngine, SoMFEngine, SoSFPath and SoMFPath.

       This method, in addition to the ordinary write() method of SoNode, needs to be present
       since the fields don't have a write action instance in their writeValue() method, and
       writeInstance() will create a new SoWriteAction and call continueToApply() on it.

       Reimplemented from SoFieldContainer.

       Reimplemented in SoTimeCounter, and SoElapsedTime.

   void SoEngine::evaluate (void) [protected],  [pure virtual]
       This API member is considered internal to the library, as it is not likely to be of
       interest to the application programmer.

       Implemented in SoHeightMapToNormalMap.

   SbBool SoEngine::readInstance (SoInput *in, unsigned shortflags) [protected],  [virtual]
       This method is mainly intended for internal use during file import operations.

       It reads a definition of an instance from the input stream in. The input stream state
       points to the start of a serialized / persistant representation of an instance of this
       class type.

       TRUE or FALSE is returned, depending on if the instantiation and configuration of the new
       object of this class type went ok or not. The import process should be robust and handle
       corrupted input streams by returning FALSE.

       flags is used internally during binary import when reading user extension nodes, group
       nodes or engines.

       Reimplemented from SoFieldContainer.

   void SoEngine::inputChanged (SoField *which) [protected],  [virtual]
       Called when an input is changed. The default method does nothing, but subclasses may
       override this method to do The Right Thing when a specific field is changed.

       Reimplemented in SoTimeCounter, SoCalculator, SoGate, and SoHeightMapToNormalMap.

   const SoFieldData ** SoEngine::getInputDataPtr (void) [static],  [protected]
       Returns the SoFieldData class which holds information about inputs in this engine.

   const SoEngineOutputData ** SoEngine::getOutputDataPtr (void) [static],  [protected]
       Returns the SoEngineOutputData class which holds information about the outputs in this
       engine.

   void SoEngine::writeOutputTypes (SoOutput *out) [protected]
       Writes the types of engine outputs for extension engines (i.e. engines not built in to
       Coin).

Author

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