234 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
234 lines
8.6 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<HTML>
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<HEAD>
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<META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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<TITLE>A Simple Scene Graph API for OpenGL.</TITLE>
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</HEAD>
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<BODY text="#B5A642" link="#8FFF8F" vlink="#18A515" alink="#20336B"
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bgcolor="#005000" background="../marble.png">
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<H2><code>class ssgBase</code> - The Universal Abstract Base Class.</H2>
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All significant SSG classes are derived from ssgBase - which offers a type testing
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mechanism and a means to print out the tree hierarchy in human-readable form,
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or to save/load it to/from disk.
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<pre>
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class ssgBase
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{
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void ref () ;
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void deRef () ;
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int getRef () ;
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int isA ( int ty ) ;
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int isAKindOf ( int ty ) ;
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int getType (void) ;
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virtual char *getTypeName(void) ;
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ssgBase *getUserData () ;
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void setUserData ( ssgBase *user_data ) ;
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void setName ( char *nm ) ;
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char *getName () ;
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const char *getPrintableName () ;
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virtual void print ( FILE *fd = stderr, char *indent = "", int how_much = 2 ) ;
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virtual int load ( FILE *fd ) ;
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virtual int save ( FILE *fd = stderr ) ;
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ssgBase *clone ( int clone_flags ) ;
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} ;
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</pre>
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<H3>Reference Counting.</H3>
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All SSG classes are reference counted - that means that whenever you
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connect a node into the scene graph with <code>ssgBranch::addKid()</code>, we
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increment its reference count and each time we remove a node from
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the graph with <code>ssgBranch::removeKid()</code>, we decrement the count -
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and if it's zero, we'll delete the node to recover memory.
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<p>
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Sometimes, you need a node to stay in memory even though it may be
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be disconnected from the scene graph. You can achieve that by
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calling <code>ssgBase::ref()</code> to increment the reference count.
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If you later find you don't need that node anymore then you may
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<code>ssgBase::deRef()</code> it. If you <code>ssgBase::deRef()</code>
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a node to zero, SSG won't automatically delete it - you still need to use
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<code>delete</code> to do that. Since such deletions are recursive,
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you may delete an entire sub-branch with a single call.
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<p>
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Instead of using <code>ssgBase::deRef()</code> directly, you should use
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<code>ssgDeRefDelete()</code> which automatically deletes the node if
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the reference count drops to zero.
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<p>
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You can read the current ref count for a node
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using <code>ssgBase::getRef()</code>.
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<H3>Names.</H3>
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It's often useful to attach an ASCII name to a node in the
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scene graph - this is often derived from a name field in
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whatever modelling tool was used to create the object.
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<code>ssgBase::setName(s)</code> sets the name,
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<code>ssgBase::getName()</code> returns it.
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<H3>User Data</H3>
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Although one can derive a new C++ class from an SSG class and thereby customise
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it's behavior, it's often more convenient to simply attach application-specific
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data structures to a basic entity. Two functions are provided:
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<code>ssgBase::getUserData()</code> and <code>ssgBase::setUserData(data)</code>.
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<p>
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Notice that user data is of class ssgBase - which means that user data
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can be named, ref-counted - and can in turn have user data of it's own.
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This allows user data to be formed into linked lists when multiple
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user data items need to be attached to a single node.
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<H3>Destructor Functions</H3>
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When an SSG entity is NOT connected into the scene graph in any
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way, then the correct way to get rid of it and free up memory
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is to call it's destructor function. However, when the entity
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is included into the scene graph, you should disconnect it
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from the tree and let the reference count mechanism take care
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of the cleanup.
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<H3>Type Names</H3>
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SSG frequently needs to know what kind of an object an ssgBase is.
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Since C++ programs may create new classes that inherit from SSG
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classes, we provide several functions to make run time type determination
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possible. There is an external function for each type that
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returns the type token for that type:
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<pre>
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int ssgTypeBase () ;
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int ssgTypeEntity () ;
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int ssgTypeLeaf () ;
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int ssgTypeVTable () ;
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int ssgTypeVtxTable () ;
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int ssgTypeDisplayList() ;
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int ssgTypeBranch () ;
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int ssgTypeBaseTransform ();
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int ssgTypeTransform () ;
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int ssgTypeTexTrans () ;
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int ssgTypeSelector () ;
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int ssgTypeTimedSelector () ;
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int ssgTypeRangeSelector () ;
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int ssgTypeRoot () ;
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int ssgTypeCutout () ;
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</pre>
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Now, you can use the <code>ssgBase::isA(type)</code> or <code>ssgBase::isAKindOf</code>
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to test the type of the node. For example, if you want to test
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whether a node is a Leaf node or a Branch node, you can do this:
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<pre>
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if ( mynode -> isAKindOf ( ssgTypeLeaf() ) )
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printf ( "Leaf node\n" ) ;
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else
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if ( mynode -> isAKindOf ( ssgTypeBranch() ) )
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printf ( "Branch node\n" ) ;
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else
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printf ( "Something else\n" ) ;
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</pre>
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Notice that if you ran that code on (say) an ssgSelector, then it'll
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print "Branch node" since the Selector class is derived from the Branch
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class. If you wanted to tell if a node was *exactly* a Branch node -
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and not from a derived class, then you could use:
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<pre>
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if ( mynode -> isA ( ssgTypeBranch() ) )
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printf ( "Branch node\n" ) ;
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</pre>
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Finally, you can actually read the type of a node - either as a
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token (using <code>ssgBase::getType()</code>) or as an ASCII string
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(using <code>ssgBase::getTypeName()</code>). The latter is very useful
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for debug routines:
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<pre>
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printf ( "ERROR - something wrong with my '%s' node.\n",
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mynode -> getTypeName () ) ;
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</pre>
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<H3>Printing</H3>
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It's sometimes useful during debug to print a section of the
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scene graph so you can examine it. <code>ssgBase::print(fd, indent, how_much)</code>
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does that for you - it prints out the node itself - and anything
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connected beneath it in the scene graph. <code>fd</code> is the
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file descriptor to print to (defaults to stderr) and
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<code>indent</code> is a string that will prefix all output lines
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- and is used internally within SSG to make printout of tree
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structures more legible by indenting them.
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<p>
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The values for the parameter <code>how_much</code> may be 0,1,2,3 or 4
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and determine how much is printed, with 0 meaning little
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and 4 meaning much.
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<BR>
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For how_much = 0, basic information of the branches is printed
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<BR>
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For 1, additionally there is: basic leaf info, state pointers
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<BR>
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For 2, additionally there is: states, user data, number of parents,
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bSphere
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<BR>
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For 3, additionally there is: Reference count
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<BR>
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For 4, additionally there is: contents of vertex-, normal-, colour-,
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texCoord- and index-arrays
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<BR>
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Experience tells that for <code>how_much = 0</code> you get very little
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out put, with 1, 2 and 3 a manageable amount and with 4 a huge amount,
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up to 100 MB for a medium sized model.
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<p>
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It would be unwise
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to attempt to parse the output of <code>ssgBase::print</code> into another
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program since it is only intended for human consumption and the
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format may change dramatically between revisions of SSG.
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<H3>Cloning:</H3>
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All classes derived from ssgBase have a member function
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<code>ssgBase *clone(int clone_flags)</code> which new's a
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new object of that class as a copy of the calling object.
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<p>
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The 'clone_flags' is a set of tokens that you 'OR' together to
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specify how 'deep' you want the cloning to go. By default
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(with clone_flags==0), only the object itself is cloned and
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the clone will simply point to the same child structures as
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the original object. However, if you OR in 'SSG_CLONE_RECURSIVE',
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then all ssgEntities beneath this one will also be cloned.
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ORing in SSG_CLONE_GEOMETRY will cause all the per-vertex data
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at the leaf nodes to also be cloned. SSG_CLONE_STATE causes
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ssgState objects to be cloned also, SSG_CLONE_STATE_RECURSIVE
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also causes states pointed to by other states to be copied,
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SSG_CLONE_USERDATA causes user data attached to
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the original node to be referenced (NOT copied) by the clone -
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otherwise, user data for the clone is set to NULL. Finally,
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SSG_CLONE_TEXTURE causes texture maps to be replicated also.
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<p>
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Most copy operations will typically use either zero, SSG_CLONE_RECURSIVE
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or (SSG_CLONE_RECURSIVE | SSG_CLONE_GEOMETRY)
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<hr>
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<table width="100%">
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<tr>
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<td width="33%" align="left"><a href="index.html"><= previous =</a></td>
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<td width="34%" align="center"><a href="index.html">Return to SSG Index</a></td>
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<td width="33%" align="right"><a href="ssgEntity.html">= next =></a></td>
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</tr>
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</table>
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<hr>
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<table>
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<tr>
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<td>
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<a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img border="0" src="../valid-html40.png" alt="Valid HTML 4.0!" height="31" width="88"></a>
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<td>
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<ADDRESS>
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<A HREF="http://www.sjbaker.org">
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Steve J. Baker.</A>
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<<A HREF="mailto:sjbaker1@airmail.net">sjbaker1@airmail.net</A>>
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</ADDRESS>
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</table>
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