Description

While in the Examine command, you have a direct interrogation tool known as the probe. The Probe frame (shown below) provides controls for this tool.

The Examine Task: Examine Tab, Probe Group
The Probe frame provides controls for the interactive probe.

The Show Interactive Probe checkbox is used to toggle the visibility of the probe on and off. The Clear Probe command is used to remove highlighting of the previously clicked probe cell and its corresponding label on the color bar.

Cell Probe

To use the probe, simply move the mouse cursor over any rendered cells in the Display window and the cell currently under the mouse will be highlighted and have its function value labeled directly on the color bar in the same highlight color.

 

Note: For vertex-centered functions, the probe renders the vertex and the bounding faces of the dual mesh control volume instead of an individual cell. For more information on how the dual mesh control volume is computed, please see Vertex-Centered Volume.

You can also click on a cell of interest with the probe to have it remain highlighted and have its function value remain labeled on the color bar while continuing to probe other cells. Probe values are also displayed in the probe area of the Status Bar. Also note that the Zoom to Selection view zooming function is available for clicked probe cells.

 

Note: For the Database and Relative Database Deviation functions, the probe renders the vertices for a 4th order (Q4) cell, with line segments denoting the distance between the linear cell and the database for these vertices. This is useful in visualizing how much curving and smoothing will be required during high-order elevation.

Right-clicking on a cell with the probe brings up a context menu with additional options based on whether the function is cell-centered or vertex-centered. Use the Create Cell Filter and Create Vertex Filter options to create and apply a filter based on the current probed index.

Right-clicking on a cell selected with the probe brings up a context menu with different options for cell-centered and vertex-centered functions.

The Show Cell Data option can be used to print out a detailed report to the Messages window containing meta-data associated with the probed cell.

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Use the Show Cell Data option to print out to the Messages window the meta-data associated with the surface or volume cell being interrogated.