Partiview Hints

Partiview is a complex program with many options and commands, but the simplest use of it is to explore a 3-D dataset. A few helpful mouse and key options are

• Modes: Orbit, Translate, and Fly. These allow you to move around the data and look in different directions. A right mouse press will take you in and out of the data. Orbit is a logarithmic move, and Translate is linear. Both Orbit and Translate allow a rotation around the point of interest with a left mouse press. The center mouse button (press down on the roller) or typing a ``p'' prompts information about the object under the mouse cursor in the image. Fly allows you to move transverse to the image plane with a left mouse press, rather than orbit around a point.
• The command censize 100 will show the $x,y,z$ coordinate lines, each 100 megaparsecs from the origin at the Sun out into space. The distance unit is megaparsecs. Try different values for censize when you want a sense of the distance scale.
• Shift key down and press the center mouse button. This one makes the point under the mouse cursor the center for rotations and motion in and out of the plane.
• The command jump 0 0 0 0 90 0 will move you to the origin and rotate your point of view about the y axis by 90 degrees. Use it with other choices of $x,y,z$ values and rotations to move to specific regions of the data, or to view in specific directions. The options g1=stars for bright stars, g3=constel for constellation outlines, and g6=radec for a coordinate grid will be of use only when the viewpoint is at the origin, so before turning them on use a jump 0 0 0. From the Earth's viewpoint Partiview will show you where in the sky the different objects appear to be located.
• The tab key is a handy way to make the Cmd: window the focus so that you can enter values without having to first click there with a mouse.