F3D Architecture

F3D is structured in different parts, interacting with each others and with F3D dependencies. This architecture is reflected by the directories organisation.

  • application: the code of the F3D application itself, see below
  • cmake: cmake macros and functions, used by the CMake build system
  • doc: this very documentation
  • examples: examples usage of the libf3d and plugin framework in python and C++
  • external: dependencies that are included directly in the code
  • java: java bindings and associated tests.
  • library: the libf3d itself, see below
  • plugins: all the plugins providing different readers, see below
  • python: python bindings and tests
  • resources: all non code, non doc, like icon, configs and such
  • testing: all testing related resources, does not contain the test themselves
  • vtkext: extensions to VTK and related tests, see below
  • webassembly: webassembly/javascript bindings and F3DWeb application code
  • winshellext: shell extension for Windows, provide thumbnails for Windows

Here is diagram explaining how some of these parts interact together:

   ┌────────────────┐              ┌───────────────┐
   │                │              │               │
   │  application   │◄────uses─────│  winshellext  │
   │                │              │               │
   └────────────────┘              └───────────────┘
           │
           │                                   ┌──────────┐
           │                                   │          │
       depends on                     ┌─warps──│  python  │
           │                          │        │          │
           │                          │        └──────────┘
           │         ┌───────────┐    │        ┌──────────┐
           └────────►│           │◄───┘        │          │
                     │  library  │◄─────wraps──│   java   │
      ┌───loads──────│           │◄───┐        │          │
      │              └───────────┘    │        └──────────┘
      ▼                    │          │        ┌──────────┐
┌───────────┐              │          │        │          │
│           │          depends on     └─wraps──│   wasm   │
│  plugins  │              │                   │          │
│           │              ▼                   └──────────┘
└───────────┘     ┌──────────────────┐
      │           │      vtkext      │
      │           ├────────┬─────────┤
     depends─on──►│ public │ private │
                  └────────┴─────────┘

vtkext

vtkext contains two VTK modules that are used extensively in the libf3d. The public one is used in the plugins.

public is a VTK module that contains classes and utilities that can be installed as part of the plugin_sdk and used by plugins, including externals plugins. vtkF3DImporter is a class that is specifically made for plugin developers to inherit their importers from. The documentation of this module can be found here.

private is a VTK module that contains many classes and utilities used by the libf3d to provide all features of F3D, especially the rendering, interactions and UI. A notable class is vtkF3DRenderer that is responsible to actually add the different actors in the 3D scene.

Each of these modules also contains tests in the Testing directory.

plugins

plugins contains libf3d plugins that are provided by default in the F3D packages. Each of these plugins correspond to a specific dependency and are named accordingly. Each of these plugins provide access to specific readers for specific formats. Without plugins, F3D and the libf3d would not be able to open any file. These plugins can be loaded statically or dynamically, which makes the dependencies truly optional if needed.

library

library contains the code of the libf3d. It is a C++ library with a very limited API surface and larger, private, implementation. Most classes in the libf3d are split in two. A public part that contains mostly the public API, and a private part, suffixed “_impl”, that implements that public API and also contains hidden methods used to communicate between classes, especially in regards to VTK symbols.

Logically, it is structured in 3 parts, public which contains the public API header files and are all installed, private which contains the implementation classes headers files and src that contains the source files of all the classes, public and private.

There is also a dedicated testing directory which contains the unit and functional testing of the libf3d.

It also contains the options.json file, which is the file used to generate all options code.

application

application contains the code of the F3D application itself. It relies of course on the libf3d to implement all the applicative logic. The most important class in the F3DStarter which contains most of the top logic on the application. F3DOptionsTools is also notable as it handles most of the command line options logic.

There is also a dedicated testing directory which contains all of the applicative testing of the F3D application as well as many functional testing of the libf3d.

Other f3d-app repositories

Although almost everything is contained in the f3d-app/f3d repository, other repositories in the f3d-app organisation are handling certains specific tasks in the F3D ecosystem.