0024482: Documentation - provide descipriprion of CSF_ShadersDirectory variable in...

[occt.git] / dox / overview / Overview.md

Overview {#mainpage}
========

@tableofcontents

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_1 Welcome

Welcome to Open CASCADE Technology (OCCT), a software development platform 
providing services for 3D surface and solid modeling, CAD data exchange, and 
visualization. Most of OCCT functionality is available in the form of C++ 
libraries. OCCT can be best applied in development of software dealing with 3D 
modeling (CAD), manufacturing / measuring (CAM) or numerical simulation (CAE).

@htmlonly<center>@endhtmlonly 
http://www.opencascade.org
@image html /resources/occt_logo.png
@image latex /resources/occt_logo.png
@htmlonly</center>@endhtmlonly

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_2 Copyrights

Open CASCADE Technology and all materials, including this documentation, is 
Copyright (c) 1999-2013 by OPEN CASCADE S.A.S. All rights reserved.

@htmlonly<center>@endhtmlonly
http://www.opencascade.com
@image html /resources/occ_logo.png
@image latex /resources/occ_logo.png
@htmlonly</center>@endhtmlonly

 License
--------

Open CASCADE Technology is free software; you can redistribute it and / or 
modify it under the terms of the 
@ref license_lgpl_21 "GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1", 
with additional @ref occt_lgpl_exception "exception".

Alternatively, Open CASCADE Technology may be used under the terms of Open 
CASCADE commercial license or contractual agreement.

Note that Open CASCADE Technology is provided on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT 
WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. The entire risk related to any use of the OCCT code and 
materials is on you. See the @ref occt_public_license "license" text for formal 
disclaimer.

 Trademark information
----------------------

You are hereby informed that all software is a property of its respective authors and is protected by 
international and domestic laws on intellectual property and trademarks. 
Should you need further information, please directly contact the authors.

**CAS.CADE** and **Open CASCADE** are registered trademarks of 
OPEN CASCADE S.A.S.

**Linux** is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

**Windows** is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries.

**Mac** and the Mac logo, **OpenCL** and the OpenCL logo, are trademarks of 
Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

 Acknowledgements
------------------

The following parties are acknowledged for producing tools which are used within 
Open CASCADE Technology libraries or for release preparation.

You are hereby informed that all rights to the software listed below belong to its respective 
authors and such software may not be freely available and/or be free of charge for any kind 
of use or purpose. We strongly recommend that you carefully read the license of these products 
and, in case you need any further information, directly contact their authors.

**Qt** is a cross-platform application framework that is widely used for developing application software 
with graphical user interface (GUI). Qt is free and open source software distributed under 
the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. In OCCT Qt is used for programming samples. 
If you need further information on Qt, please, refer to Qt Homepage (http://qt.digia.com).

**Tcl** is a high-level programming language. Tk is a graphical user interface (GUI) toolkit, 
with buttons, menus, listboxes, scrollbars, and so on. Taken together Tcl and Tk provide a solution 
to develop cross-platform graphical user interfaces with a native look and feel. Tcl/Tk is under copyright by 
Scriptics Corp., Sun Microsystems, and other companies. However, Tcl/Tk is an open source, and 
the copyright allows you to use, modify, and redistribute Tcl/Tk for any purpose, without an 
explicit license agreement and without paying any license fees or royalties. 
To use Tcl/Tk, please refer to the Licensing Terms (http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/license.html).

**Robert Boehne** has developed **GNU Autoconf**, **Automake** and **Libtool** scripts and makefiles 
for the Open CASCADE project http://sourceforge.net/projects/autoopencas/, 
which became an initial groundwork for the build scripts based on respective GNU tools 
(autoconf, automake and libtool) in Open CASCADE Technology version 4.0. 
These scripts are now maintained by the OPEN CASCADE company.

**GL2PS** is developed by Christophe Geuzaine and others. It is optionally used by OCCT to
export content of OpenGL scene to vector graphics formats (PS, PDF, EMF, SVG). 
The library is licensed under GL2PS LICENSE http://www.geuz.org/gl2ps/COPYING.GL2PS Version 2, November 2003.

**FreeType 2** is developed by Antoine Leca, David Turner, Werner Lemberg and others. 
It is a software font engine that is designed to be small, efficient, highly customizable and 
portable while capable of producing high-quality output (glyph images). This product 
can be used in graphic libraries, display servers, font conversion tools, 
text image generation tools, and many other products.

FreeType 2 is released under two open-source licenses: BSD-like FreeType License and the GPL.

**Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks (TBB)** offers a rich and complete approach to expressing parallelism in a C++ program. 
It is a library that helps you to take advantage of multi-core processor performance without having to be a threading expert. 
Threading Building Blocks is not just a threads-replacement library. It represents a higher-level, task-based parallelism that 
abstracts platform details and threading mechanisms for scalability and performance. 
TBB is available under GPLv2 license with the runtime exception.

Open CASCADE Technology WOK module on Windows also makes use of LGPL-licensed C routines **regexp** 
and **getopt**, taken from GNU C library.

**OpenGL** is an industry standard API for 3D graphics used by OCCT for 
implementation of 3D viewer. OpenGL specification is developed by the
Khronos group, http://www.khronos.org/opengl/. OCCT code includes header 
file *glext.h* obtained from Khronos web site.

**OpenCL** (Open Computing Language) is open, royalty-free standard for 
cross-platform, parallel programming of modern processors, optionally used by 
OCCT for ray tracing. OpenCL specification is developed by the
Khronos group, http://www.khronos.org/opencl/. The implementations of OpenCL 
are available from Apple, AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, and other vendors. 
**OpenCL Installable Client Driver (ICD) Loader** is a library provided by
Khronos group which allows dispatching OpenCL calls to underlying 
implementation.

**Doxygen** developed by Dimitri van Heesch is open source documentation system for 
C++, C, Java, Objective-C, Python, IDL, PHP and C#. This product is used in Open CASCADE Technology 
for automatic creation of Technical Documentation from C++ header files. 
If you need further information on Doxygen, please refer to http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/index.html.

**Graphviz** is open source graph visualization software developed by John Ellson, Emden Gansner, Yifan Hu and Arif Bilgin. 
Graph visualization is representiation of structured information as diagrams of abstract graphs and networks. 
This product is used together with Doxygen in Open CASCADE Technology for automatic creation of Technical Documentation 
(generation of dependency graphs). Current versions of Graphviz are licensed on an open source 
basis under The Eclipse Public License (EPL) (http://www.graphviz.org/License.php).

**Inno Setup** is a free script-driven installation system created in CodeGear Delphi by Jordan Russell. 
In OCCT Inno Setup is used to create Installation Wizard on Windows. 
It is licensed under Inno Setup License (http://www.jrsoftware.org/files/is/license.txt).

**FreeImage** is an Open Source library supporting popular graphics image formats, such as PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF, 
and others used by multimedia applications. This library is developed by Hervé Drolon and Floris van den Berg. 
FreeImage is easy to use, fast, multithreading safe, compatible with all 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows, 
and cross-platform (works both with Linux and Mac OS X). FreeImage is optionally used by OCCT to work
with images, on conditions of the FreeImage Public License (FIPL) (http://freeimage.sourceforge.net/freeimage-license.txt).

**MikTEX** is up-to-date implementation of TeX/LaTeX and related programs for Windows. It is used 
for generation of User and Developer Guides in PDF format. See http://miktex.org for information
on this tool.

Adobe Systems, Inc. provides **Adobe Reader**, which can be used to view files in Portable Document Format (PDF). 

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_3 Documentation

OCCT documentation is provided in several forms:

- This overview provides general description of OCCT structure, functionality, modules, and features. 
  It is available in HTML format (generated by Doxygen) and includes User and Developer Guides.
  The sources of this documentation are contained in **dox** subdirectory of OCCT sources 
  (plain text format is used, with mixed MarkDown / Doxygen syntax mark-up).

- User and Developer Guides describing in details OCCT modules and development tools are also available in 
  Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). To read this format, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader, 
  which is a freeware and can be downloaded from the Adobe site. 

- Full reference documentation covering all OCCT classes generated automatically by Doxygen 
  software is provided in HTML format, in a separate package. 
  Reference documentation is presented in **Modules --> Toolkits --> Packages --> Classes** 
  logic structure with cross-references to all OCCT classes and complete in-browser search by all classes.

See @ref dev_guides__documentation "OCCT Documentation Guide" for details on OCCT documentation system.

**Generation of HTML documentation**

To generate HTML documentation from sources contained in *dox* subdirectory, 
you need to have Tcl and Doxygen 1.8.4 (or above) installed on your system.

In Tcl prompt, cd to OCCT root folder and run 

    tclsh> source dox/start.tcl

On Windows you can also run batch script **gendoc.bat**.


**Generation of reference documentation**

Reference documentation can be generated with help of WOK tool that 
is available for download from www.opencascade.org and dev.opencascade.org sites.

Prerequisites:

  * Doxygen version 1.8.4 or higher
  * Graphviz version 2.28.0 or higher

Run WOK (cd \<WOK_INSTALL_DIR\>/site folder):

* Using WOK TCL shell:
      > wok_tclsh.sh

* Using Emacs editor:
      > wok_emacs.sh

In the WOK prompt, step into your workbench:

      > wokcd <your workbench>

In your workbench, use **wgendoc** command with –h argument to get information about arguments of **wgendoc** command:

      > wgendoc -h

then run **wgendoc** command with required arguments, for instance:

      > wgendoc -output=d:/occt/doc {-m=Draw Visualization}

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_5 Requirements

Open CASCADE Technology is designed to be highly portable and is known to 
work on wide range of platforms (UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X). 
Current version is officially certified on Windows (IA-32 and x86-64), 
Linux (x86-64) and MAC OS X (x86-64) platforms. 

The tables below describe the recommended hardware and software configurations
for which OCCT is certified to work.

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_5_1 Linux

| Operating System  | Mandriva 2010, CentOS 5.5, CentOS 6.3, Fedora 17, Fedora 18, Ubuntu-1304, Debian 6.0\*  |
| ----- | ----- |
| Minimum memory    | 512 MB, 1 GB recommended |
| Free disk space (complete installation) | 600 MB approx. |
| Video card   | See \ref overview_req_graphics |
| Graphic library | OpenGL 1.1+ (OpenGL 2.1+ is recommended)|
| C++      | GNU gcc 4.0.  - 4.7.3. |
| TCL (for testing tools)    | Tcltk 8.5 or 8.6 http://www.tcl.tk/software/tcltk/8.6.html |
| Qt (for demonstration tools) | Qt 4.6.2 http://qt.nokia.com/downloads |
| Freetype (for text rendering) | freetype-2.4.11 http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetype/files/ |
| FreeImage (optional, for support of common 2D graphic formats) | FreeImage 3.15.4 http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeimage/files |
| gl2ps (optional, for export contents of OCCT viewer to vector graphic files) | gl2ps-1.3.8  http://geuz.org/gl2ps/ |
| Intel TBB (optional, for multithreaded algorithms) | TBB 3.x or 4.x http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/ |
| OpenCL (optional, for ray tracing visualization) | OpenCL SDK (usually one provided by vendor of your graphic card) or OpenCL ICD Loader by Khronos group, http://www.khronos.org/registry/cl |

* Debian 60 64 bit is a platform used for regular testing of contributions 

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_5_2 Windows

| Operating System | Windows 8 / 7 SP1 / Vista SP2 / XP SP3 |
| ----- | ----- |
| Minimum memory    | 512 MB, 1 GB recommended |
| Free disk space (complete installation) | 600 MB approx. |
| Video card   | See \ref overview_req_graphics |
| Graphic library | OpenGL 1.1+ (OpenGL 2.1+ is recommended)|
| C++ | Microsoft Visual Studio: 2005 SP1, 2008 SP1\*, 2010 SP1, 2012 Update 3, 2013 <br>Intel C++ Composer XE 2013 SP1 |
| TCL (for testing tools) | ActiveTcl 8.5 or 8.6 http://www.activestate.com/activetcl/downloads |
| Qt (for demonstration tools) | Qt 4.6.2 http://qt.nokia.com/downloads |
| Freetype (OCCT Text rendering) | freetype-2.4.11 http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetype/files/ |
| FreeImage (Support of common graphic formats) | FreeImage 3.15.4 http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeimage/files |
| gl2ps (Export contents of OCCT viewer to vector graphic file) | gl2ps-1.3.8  http://geuz.org/gl2ps/ |
| Intel TBB (optional, for multithreaded algorithms) | TBB 3.x or 4.x http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/ |
| OpenCL (optional, for ray tracing visualization) | OpenCL SDK (usually one provided by vendor of your graphic card) or OpenCL ICD Loader by Khronos group, http://www.khronos.org/registry/cl |

* VC++ 9 32-bit is used for certification of contributions and for building 
  binary package of official release of OCCT on Windows.

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_5_3 MAC OS X

| Operating System | Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks / 10.8 Mountain Lion / 10.7 Lion / 10.6.8 Snow Leopard |
| ----- | ----- |
| Minimum memory    | 512 MB, 1 GB recommended |
| Free disk space (complete installation) | 600 MB approx. |
| Video card | See \ref overview_req_graphics |
| Graphic library | OpenGL 1.1+ (OpenGL 2.1+ is recommended)|
| C++      | XCode 3.2 or newer (4.x is recommended) |
| Qt (for demonstration tools) | Qt 4.6.2 http://qt.nokia.com/downloads |
| Freetype (OCCT Text rendering) | freetype-2.4.11 http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetype/files/ |
| FreeImage (Support of common graphic formats) | FreeImage 3.15.4 http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeimage/files |
| gl2ps (Export contents of OCCT viewer to vector graphic file) | gl2ps-1.3.8  http://geuz.org/gl2ps/ |
| Intel TBB (optional, for multithreaded algorithms) | TBB 3.x or 4.x http://www.threadingbuildingblocks.org/ |
| OpenCL (optional, for ray tracing visualization) | Native OpenCL 1.2.8 | 

@subsection overview_req_graphics Graphic cards

For 3d viewer, graphic card or software implementation supporting OpenGL 1.1 
or above is required. OpenGL 2.1+ is highly recommended.
For ray tracing, hardware implementation of OpenCL 1.1+ is required.

The following table lists graphic cards tested to work with OCCT.

| Graphic card | Driver/GL/GLSL/CL version | OS | OpenGL (fixed pipeline) | OpenGL (shaders) | OpenCL (ray tracing) |
| ---- | ---- | ---- | :----: | :----: | :----: |
| NVIDIA GeForce GT 610, 630M, 640 | Driver 311.44, GL 4.3.0, GLSL 4.30 | Windows 7 64 bit | OK | OK | OK |
| Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 | GL 3.1.0, GLSL 1.40 | Windows 7 64 bit | OK | OK | none |
| RadeOn 9600 | GL 2.1.8454, GLSL 1.20 | | OK | bad | none |
| AMD/ATI RadeOn HD 7870 | Driver 6.14.10.12002, GL 4.2.12002, GLSL 4.20 | Windows 7 64-bit | OK | OK | OK |
| Mesa 7.8.2 Windows GDI Driver\* | GL 2.1, GLSL version 1.20 | Mac OS X 10.6 / OS X 10.9 | OK | artifacts | none |
| NVIDIA GeForce 320 |  | Mac OS X 10.6 / OS X 10.9 | OK | OK | OK on OSX 10.6, bad on OSX 10.9 |
| NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT | GL 2.1.2, GLSL 1.20 | Windows XP 32-bit | OK | OK | none |
| Apple software OpenGL | | Mac OS X 10.6 / OS X 10.9 | OK | OK | OK |

* Mesa implementation of OpenGL is used for certification testing of OCCT

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_4 Installation

In most cases you need to rebuild OCCT on your platform (OS, compiler) before
using it in your project, to ensure binary compatibility.
See @ref dev_guides__building for instructions on
building OCCT from sources on supported platforms.

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_4_1 Using Windows installer

On Windows Open CASCADE Technology can be installed with binaries precompiled by 
Visual C++ 2008 with installation procedure.

**Recommendation:**

If you have a previous version of OCCT installed on your station, 
and you do not plan to use it along with the new version, you might want to uninstall 
the previous version (using Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs) before 
the installation of this new version, to avoid possible problems 
(conflict of system variables, paths, etc).

**Attention:** For full installation OCCT requires approximately 650 Mb of disk space, 
but during the installation process you will need 1,2 Gb of free disk space.

OCCT installation with reference documentation requires 1,4 Gb on disk.

  * Download the OCCT installer from OPEN CASCADE web site using the link. you have been provided
  * Launch the installer and follow the instructions.

The includes and binaries of third-party libraries necessary for building and launching 
OCCT are included into binary distribution (built with Visual C++ 2008). 
When the installation is complete, you will find the directories for 3rd party products 
(some might be absent in case of custom installation) and the main **OCCT** directory:

@image html /overview/images/overview_3rdparty.png 
@image latex /overview/images/overview_3rdparty.png 

The contents of the OCCT-6.7.0 directory (called further "OCCT root", or $CASROOT) are as follows: 

@image html /overview/images/overview_installation.png "The directory tree"
@image latex /overview/images/overview_installation.png "The directory tree"

  * **adm**   This folder contains administration files, which allow rebuilding OCCT;
  * **adm/cmake**  This folder contains files of CMake building procedure;
  * **adm/msvc**  This folder contains Visual Studio projects for Visual C++  2005, 2008 and 2010, which allow rebuilding OCCT under Windows platform in 32 and 64-bit mode;
  * **data**  This folder contains CAD files in different formats, which can be used to test the OCCT functionality;
  * **doc**  This folder contains OCCT documentation in HTML and PDF format;
  * **dox**  This folder contains sources of OCCT documentation in plain text (MarkDown) format;
  * **drv**  This folder contains source files generated by WOK (private header files and instantiations of generic classes);
  * **inc**  This folder contains all OCCT header files;
  * **samples**  This folder contains sample applications.
  * **src**  This folder contains OCCT source files. They are organized in folders, one per development unit;
  * **tests**  This folder contains scripts for OCCT testing.
  * **win32/vc9**  This folder contains executable and library files built in optimize mode for Windows platform by Visual C++  2008;

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_4_2 Environment Variables

To run any Open CASCADE Technology application you need to set the environment variables.

### On Windows

You can define the environment variables with env.bat script located in the 
$CASROOT folder. This script accepts two arguments to be used: 
the version of Visual Studio (vc8 - vc12) and the architecture (win32 or win64).

The additional environment settings necessary for compiling OCCT libraries and samples 
by Microsoft Visual Studio can be set using script custom.bat located in the same folder. 
You might need to edit this script to correct the paths to third-party libraries 
if they are installed on your system in a non-default location.

Script msvc.bat can be used with the same arguments for immediate launch of Visual Studio for (re)compiling OCCT.

### On Unix


  If OCCT was built by Code::Blocks, you can define the environment variables with env_cbp.sh or custom_cbp.sh script.

  If OCCT was built by Automake, you can define the environment variables with env_amk.sh or custom_amk.sh script.

The scripts are located in the OCCT root folder.

 
### Description of system variables:


  * **CASROOT** is used to define the root directory of Open CASCADE Technology;
  * **PATH** is required to define the path to OCCT binaries and 3rdparty folder;
  * **LD_LIBRARY_PATH** is required to define the path to OCCT libraries (on UNIX platforms only);
  * **MMGT_OPT** (optional) if set to 1, the memory manager performs optimizations as described below; if set to 2, 
    Intel (R) TBB optimized memory manager is used; if 0 (default), every memory block is allocated 
    in C memory heap directly (via malloc() and free() functions). 
    In the latter case, all other options except MMGT_CLEAR  and MMGT_REENTRANT are ignored;
  * **MMGT_CLEAR** (optional) if set to 1 (default), every allocated memory block is cleared by zeros; 
    if set to 0, memory block is returned as it is;
  * **MMGT_CELLSIZE** (optional) defines the maximal size of blocks allocated in large pools of memory. Default is 200;
  * **MMGT_NBPAGES** (optional) defines the size of memory chunks allocated for small blocks in pages 
    (operating-system dependent). Default is 10000;
  * **MMGT_THRESHOLD** (optional) defines the maximal size of blocks that are recycled internally 
    instead of being returned to the heap. Default is 40000;
  * **MMGT_MMAP** (optional) when set to 1 (default), large memory blocks are allocated using 
    memory mapping functions of the operating system; if set to 0, 
    they will be allocated in the C heap by malloc();
  * **CSF_LANGUAGE** is required to define the default language of messages;
  * **CSF_DEBUG** (optional, Windows only): if defined then a diagnostic message is displayed in case of an exception;
  * **CSF_DEBUG_BOP** (optional): if defined then it should specify directory where diagnostic data on problems occured in Boolean operations will be saved;
  * **CSF_MDTVTexturesDirectory** defines the directory for available textures when using texture mapping;
  * **CSF_ShadersDirectory** defines the directory for GLSL programs (required for advanced rendering techniques and custom shaders);
  * **CSF_UnitsDefinition** and **CSF_UnitsLexicon** should define paths to resource files Lexi_Expr.dat and Units.dat, respectively, required for support of measurement units;
  * **CSF_SHMessage** is required in order to define the path to the messages file for *ShapeHealing*;
  * **CSF_XSMessage** is required in order to define the path to the messages file for **STEP** and **IGES** translators;
  * **CSF_StandardDefaults** and **CSF_PluginDefaults** are required in order to maintain CASCADE Persistence mechanism to make possible any open/save operations with OCAF documents;
  * **CSF_StandardLiteDefaults** is required in order to maintain *OCCT Persistence mechanism* to make possible any open/save operations with Lite OCAF documents;
  * **CSF_XCAFDefaults**  any open/save operations for **XDE** documents;
  * **CSF_IGESDefaults** and **CSF_STEPDefaults** are required for **IGES** and **STEP** translators correspondingly in order to define the path to the resource files;
  * **CSF_XmlOcafResource** is required in order to set the path to **XSD** resources, which defines XML grammar.
  * **CSF_MIGRATION_TYPES** is required in order to read documents that contain old data types, such as *TDataStd_Shape*;
  * **TCLLIBPATH**, **TCL_LIBRARY**, **TK_LIBRARY** and **TIX_LIBRARY** are required to allow work with **DRAW** and **WOK**.

@section OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7 Getting Started

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7_1 Draw Test Harness

Draw is a command interpreter based on TCL and a graphical system used for testing and demonstrating OCCT modeling libraries.

Draw can be used interactively to create, display and modify objects such as curves, surfaces and topological shapes.

@image html /overview/images/overview_draw.png
@image latex /overview/images/overview_draw.png

Scripts can be written to customize Draw and perform tests. 
New types of objects and new commands can be added using C++ programming language.

Draw contains:

  * A command interpreter based on TCL command language.
  * A 2D an 3D graphic viewer with support of operations such as zoom, pan, rotation and full-screen views.
  * An optional set of geometric commands to create and modify curves and surfaces and to use OCCT geometry algorithms.
  * A set of topological commands to create and modify BRep shapes and to use OCCT topology algorithms.
  * A set of graphic commands for view and display operations including Mesh Visualization Service.
  * A set of Application framework commands for handling of files and attributes.
  * A set of Data Exchange commands for translation of files from various formats (IGES,STEP) into OCCT shapes.
  * A set of Shape Healing commands: check of overlapping edges, approximation of a shape to BSpline, etc.  

You can add new custom test harness commands to Draw in order to test 
or demonstrate a new functionality, which you are developing.

Currently DRAW Test Harness is a single executable called DRAWEXE.

Commands grouped in toolkits can be loaded at run-time thereby implementing dynamically loaded plug-ins. 
Thus you can work only with the commands that suit your needs adding 
the commands dynamically without leaving the Test Harness session.

Declaration of available plug-ins is done through special resource file(s). 
The pload command loads the plug-in in accordance with 
the specified resource file and activates the commands implemented in the plug-in.

The whole process of using the plug-in mechanism as well as the instructions for extending Test Harness is described in the @ref user_guides__test_harness.

Draw Test Harness provides an environment for OCCT automated testing system. 
Please, consult its @ref dev_guides__tests "Automated Testing System" for details.

Remarks:

* The DRAWEXE executable is delivered with the installation procedure on Windows platform only.
* To start it, launch DRAWEXE executable from Open CASCADE Technology/Draw Test Harness item of the Start\\Programs menu.

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7_2 Experimenting with Draw Test Harness

 Running Draw
------------

**On Linux:**

1. If OCCT was built by Code::Blocks  use <i>$CASROOT/draw_cbp.sh</i> file to launch *DRAWEXE* executable;
2. If OCCT was built by Automake    use <i>$CASROOT/draw_amk.sh</i> file to launch *DRAWEXE* executable;

Draw[1]> prompt appears in the command window

Type *pload ALL*

**On Windows:**

Launch Draw executable from Open CASCADE Technology\\Test Harness\\Draw Test Harness 
item of the Start\\Programs menu or Use <i>$CASROOT\\draw.bat</i> file to launch *DRAWEXE* executable.

Draw[1]> prompt appears in the command window

Type pload ALL

**Creating your first geometric objects**

1. In the command window, type *axo* to create an axonometric view
2. Type *box b -10 -10 -10 20 20 20* to create a cube *b* of size 20, parallel to the X Y Z axis and centered on the origin. The cube will be displayed in the axonometric view in wireframe mode.
3. Type *fit* to fill the viewer with the cube
4. Type *pcylinder c 2 30* to create a cylinder *c* of radius 2 and height 30. The cylinder will be displayed in addition to the cube

**Manipulating the view**

1. Type *clear* to erase the view
2. Type *donly c* to display the cylinder only
3. Type *donly b* to display the cube only
4. Type *hlr hlr b* to display the cube in the hidden line removal mode

**Running demonstration files**

1. Type *cd ../..* to return to the root directory
2. Type *cd samples/tcl* to reach the *DrawResources* directory
3. Type *source <demo_file>* to run the demonstration file provided with Open CASCADE. The following demonstration files are available:
  * bottle.tcl
  * challenge.tcl  
  * DataExchangeDemo.tcl
  * ModelingDemo.tcl
  * VisualizationDemo.tcl

**Getting Help**

1. Type *help* to see all available commands
2. Type *help <command_name>* to find out the arguments for a given command

@subsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7_3 Programming Samples

@subsubsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7_3_1 MFC 

Visual C++ programming samples containing 10 Visual C++ projects 
illustrating how to use a particular module or functionality.

The list of MFC samples:

  * Geometry
  * Modeling
  * Viewer2d
  * Viewer3d
  * ImportExport
  * Ocaf
  * Triangulation
  * HLR
  * Animation
  * Convert

@image html /overview/images/overview_mvc.png
@image latex /overview/images/overview_mvc.png

**Remarks:**

  * MFC samples are available only on Windows platform;
  * To start a sample use Open CASCADE Technology\\Samples\\Mfc\\ item of the Start\\Programs menu;
  * Read carefully readme.txt to learn about launching and compilation options.

See \subpage samples_mfc_standard "Readme" for details.

@subsubsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7_3_2 Qt

OCCT contains three samples based on Qt application framework

 Import Export
-------------

 Import Export programming sample contains 3D Viewer and Import / Export functionality.

@image html /overview/images/overview_qt.png
@image latex /overview/images/overview_qt.png

 Tutorial
---------

The Qt programming tutorial teaches how to use Open CASCADE Technology services to model a 3D object. 
The purpose of the tutorial is not to explain all OCCT classes but 
to help start thinking in terms of the Open CASCADE Technology.

This tutorial assumes that  the user has experience in using and setting up C++. 
From the viewpoint of programming, Open CASCADE Technology is designed 
to enhance user's C++ tools with high performance modeling classes, methods and functions. 
The combination of these resources allows creating substantial applications.

**See also:** @ref tutorial "OCCT Tutorial" 

 Voxel
------

This is a demonstration application showing OCCT voxel models. It also includes a set of non-regression tests and other commands for testing this functionality (accessible only through TEST pre-processor definition).

**See also:** <a href="occt_voxels_wp.html">Voxels User's guide</a> 

**Remarks:**

  * Qt samples are available on all supported platforms;
  * To start a sample on Windows use Open CASCADE Technology\\Samples\\Qt\\ item of the Start\\Programs menu.

@subsubsection OCCT_OVW_SECTION_7_3_3 C#

C# sample demonstrates integration of OCCT 3D Viewer and Import / Export functionality into .NET applications (using Windows Forms and WPF front ends).

@image html /overview/images/overview_c__ie.png
@image latex /overview/images/overview_c__ie.png

Import:

  * BRep
  * Iges
  * Step

Export: 

  * Brep
  * Iges
  * Step
  * Stl
  * Vrml

See \subpage samples_csharp "Readme" for details.