VDECK(1)

📦
version 7.44.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

💅 vdeck(1) — the BRL-CAD manual page, but make it make sense

okay bestie, so you want a COMGEOM card deck out of your BRL-CAD database? say less. this is vdeck, from the BRL-CAD fam, and it's literally the bridge between your pretty .g file and the crusty column-oriented ASCII that GIFT5 eats. let's go 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

vdeck — generate COMGEOM card decks from a BRL-CAD geometry database 💖

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

vdeck [-d] file.g [object ...]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so. the vdeck tool reads a BRL-CAD geometry database (.g) and produces a COMGEOM card deck — which is the strictly column-oriented ASCII representation historically used as input to GIFT5 (also gift(1V)). yes, column-oriented. like, every character in its little assigned seat. iconic but strict 💅

a deck is made of three tables:

  • a Solid table
  • a Region table
  • a region Ident table

and when you concatenate them in that exact order with cat(1), they form a complete COMGEOM deck. slay 🔥

vdeck runs an interactive command interpreter. objects get selected from the database table of contents into a working list, and then a deck is written for that list. object names may be given with the shell-style string-matching operators , ?, [], - and \\ (see *sh(1)). any object names supplied on the command line after file.g are inserted into the working list before the interpreter starts. so you can walk in already loaded, no cap 🎀

the interactive commands (the first letter is sufficient, and all arguments are optional) are:

  • deck [prefix] — produce a COMGEOM card deck for the current list.
  • erase — erase the current list of objects.
  • insert [object ...] — add matching objects to the current list.
  • list [object ...] — display the current list of selected objects.
  • number [solid] [region] — set the starting numbers for solids and regions.
  • quit — terminate the run.
  • remove [object ...] — remove matching objects from the current list.
  • sort — sort the table of contents alphabetically.
  • toc [object ...] — show the database table of contents.

typing ? at the prompt prints a menu of these commands. she's helpful like that 🧚

only primitives with a COMGEOM equivalent are converted, and here's the full guest list:

  • tor
  • arb8 (and its degenerate arb forms)
  • ell
  • tgc (and its rcc/trc/tec/rec forms)
  • ars
  • half
  • arbn

primitives without a COMGEOM equivalent get written as a placeholder record and skipped with a warning. not ghosted, exactly — more like politely seated at the kids' table 🙈

💀 OPTIONS 💀

  • -d — enable debug output. region and solid processing is reported on standard output as the deck is built 👑

🌸 EXAMPLES 🌸

Example 1. Build and concatenate a COMGEOM deck for a group

vdeck havoc.g
command ( ? for menu ) >> insert havoc
command ( ? for menu ) >> deck havoc
command ( ? for menu ) >> quit
cat havoc.st havoc.rt havoc.id > havoc.cg

so what just happened: it selects the havoc group from the database, writes the three deck files havoc.st, havoc.rt, and havoc.id, then concatenates them in Solid/Region/Ident order into a single COMGEOM deck havoc.cg suitable for input to GIFT5. main character behavior fr fr ⭐

heads up bestie: without a prefix argument to deck, the files are named solids, regions, and region_ids instead. ikyk 😌

🍓 FILES 🍓

  • solids, regions, region_ids — default Solid, Region, and region Ident tables (when deck is given no prefix).
  • prefix.st, prefix.rt, prefix.id — Solid, Region, and region Ident tables (when deck is given a prefix).

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

brlcad(1), mged(1), cat(1), sh(1) — go read those too, they're part of the lore 💜

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

BRL-CAD Team

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2026 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

😭 BUG REPORTS 😭

reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org. don't suffer in silence, bestie, they literally want to know 🫶

okay that's the whole page, and it's from the BRL-CAD crew — vdeck(1), the manual page itself 💅✨ go build some decks, you've got this 💜

📦 where this page comes from