HOW TO CREATE TEXT ANNOTATION

Annotate
Create Text Annotation

INTRODUCTION
EnSight has comprehensive features for text annotation. Not only can you display and position user-specified text,
you can also display text contained in the description lines of some data formats as well as dynamic text that changes
over time.

BASIC OPERATION
1. Click Text icon from the Feature Icon Bar to
open the Annotation Feature Panel.

2. Click the Text tab

3. Click the Create button, which will create a

“New Text” annotation.

4. Click on the text string and modify it.

If you hit the “Enter” keyboard key you will
insert a line return into the annotation.

While entering text, you can easily change the

script to super, sub, or normal by clicking the
Superscript, Subscript, or Normal buttons found
in the Super/Sub tab. These buttons will insert
<up>, <dn>, or <no> into the string.

Other Special Coded Items, including changing

the font, which can be inserted into a string (by
selecting and hitting Insert special item) are
discussed below.

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To manipulate text string attributes, first select the string(s) of interest in the list then:

To change visibility:
Toggle Visible off or on.

To change color:
Select the desired color from the matrix, enter RGB
values in the fields, or click More... to open the Color
Selector dialog.

To change justification:
Select the desired Left, Right, or Center justification from
the Justify pulldown.

To change text size:

Either resize the text interactively by grabbing the touch-
n-go resize handle and dragging, or by precisely
specifying the font size in the Size field of the dialog (or
using the slider to change the font size).
Important Note! The text size specified is relative to the
size of the Graphics Window. If you increase the size of
the Graphics Window, all text will also rescale to
maintain the same relative size.

To change text rotation:

The orientation of text about the text justification point
may be specified by specifying the rotation angle (in
degrees) in the Rotation field (or using the slider to
change rotation angle). You can also specify a rotation
angle from the Quick Action icon bar.

To add shadow text effect:

Enter offset and intensity or use sliders. You can also
use the Quick Action Icon Bar.

To change location of the justification point in the

graphics window:
Either interactively drag the text to the desired location
using the touch-and-go handles, or precisely specify the
location in the Origin XY fields.

You can also specify the viewport that the text is to be

positioned relative to. If 0, the position is relative to the
graphics window.

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Special Coded Items

EnSight can automatically build text strings based on information from various sources. To use one of these special
strings, select the desired item from the Special String list, select any required options, and click Insert Special Item.
A code will be inserted into the Text field.
The following special strings are available. If multiple cases are loaded, any reference to parts or variables applies to
the currently selected case (select Case > casename to changes cases)
Fonts Brings up the TrueType font selection dialog, allowing a new font to be selected

Information on manipulating fonts, including additional text font formatting codes

that can be used, are described in How To Manipulate Fonts

Symbols Brings up a symbol dialog. Click on any symbol to insert it at the current character
insertion point of the string. The symbol will be inserted in to the string via a <sy>xxx,
where xxx is the ASCII number for the selected symbol.
Constant Variable The value of a constant variable (such as Time or Length). Select the variable from the
Constant Variables list and select the desired numeric display format from the Number
Format list.

If the constant variable changes, the corresponding text will automatically update. This
is very useful for displaying the current solution time during a transient animation.
Date Current date. Example: Wed Jan 1 12:34:56 2012
Geometry Header The first or second text line of the geometry file of the current case. Select Line 1 or Line
2.
Measured Header The first line of the measured (discrete) data file of the current case.
Variable Header The first line (typically the description line) from a variable file. Select the desired
variable from the Variable(s) list.
Part Value The “value” of a part. Currently works for isosurface and some (ijk, xyz, rtz, plane
aligned with axis, or attached to spline) clip parts where the value is the corresponding
isovalue or clip location or value. Parts that have a value will appear in the part selection
list. Select the part in the Part(s) list and select the desired numeric display format from
the Number Format list.
Part Description The description of the part as displayed in the Main Parts list. (Note that you can change
this text by editing the Desc field in the applicable Feature Panel for the part.)
Version The name and current version number. Example: EnSight Version 10.0.

EnSight command language variables can also be inserted into annotation strings via a special item coding option.
This coding item does not have an associated GUI, but can be typed directly into the annotation text edit field. The
coding has the form:

<\\ensv “format“ var_name\\>

The format string is the “C” printf specification for the item formatting. var_name is the actual name of the variable
value to be inserted. If the following lines of EnSight command language were executed:

$globalstring example
$example = Hello from EnSight

The annotation string:

The value is: <\\ensv “%s“ example\\>

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would result in the annotation containing the string “The value is: Hello from EnSight”. If the variable is updated, the
following command language will update the annotation:

text: update

Another example uses the built-in EnSight frames per second counter which stores the current rendering rate in
frames per second in the ensight variable “ensight_fps”. This annotation string, containing embedded ensight
variable formatting, will display the current rendering rate dynamically in EnSight:

Frames per second: <\\ensv “%.2f“ ensight_fps\\>

It is also possible to embed the value of an interactive query into an annotation string. The first value of the
interactive query results is always used. The format for this is the keyword "iqval", followed by a format statement
and a interactive query id number (zero based). For example:

Temperature = <\\iqval "%.2f" 0\\>

will display an annotation string with the value of interactive query 0 displayed to two places of precision after the
equal sign in the annotation.

Delete Annotations
Existing annotations can be deleted by selecting them in the
Annotations list and performing a right click to “Delete”.

SEE ALSO
How To Manipulate Fonts
User Manual: Text Annotation

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