View on GitHub

Geant4 Zero to Hero

The Definitive Guide for End Users

VRML

Shine Visualization

The VRML visualization driver is available in any Geant4 installation. It is used to generate files, g4_??.wrl, which can be viewed online with Shine, or using an external program, such as ParaView, castle model viewer (formerly view3dscene, not available for Macs with Apple silicon chips), 3D builder (Windows App), ORBISNAP (not available for Macs with Apple silicon chips), FreeWRL (not available for Macs with Apple silicon chips), OpenVRML (10 years old!), etc., or be converted to its succeeder X3D, which can be viewed directly in a modern web browser that supports WebGL.

Example

detector.tg describes the model in the basic Geant4 example B1. mingle.mac and gears.mac can be used by MinGLE and GEARS, respectively, to generate g4_??.wrl from detector.tg.

# assume mingle is available in your PATH
mingle mingle.mac
# assume gears is available in your PATH
gears gears.mac

Limitations

VRML doesn’t show texts. The following macro commands do not work (at least not fully) in VRML.

/vis/scene/add/date
/vis/scene/add/text
/vis/scene/add/text2D
/vis/scene/add/logo2D
/vis/scene/add/eventID
/vis/scene/add/axes  # axes show, but without label and color
/vis/scene/add/scale # scale shows, but without label

The command to generate a 3D G4 logo (/vis/scene/add/logo) works because the logo is made of two 3D objects.

The color of a volume specified by /vis/geometry/set/colour volumeName ! 0.3 0.6 0.7 0.3 is saved in g4_??.wrl, but the opacity setting is not, because the opacity of a volume can normally be tuned in a VRML viewer.

Colors of trajectories are saved in g4_??.wrl. They can be shown correctly in some VRML viewers. However, their color settings are not obeyed in the wireframe mode in a VRML viewer.

A volume turned off by /vis/geometry/set/visibility volumeName ! false will not be saved in g4_??.wrl.

Setting /vis/viewer/set/style surface/wireframe/cloud is not saved in g4_??.wrl. But they can be toggled in a VRML viewer.

Settings related to viewpoint or orientations seem to have no effect, because they can be changed in a VRML viewer.