Maxsurf has a number of global preferences, which affect how the program works. These may be changed by selecting Preferences from the Edit menu.
The different settings are described below:
Control Point Size
The control point size may be set to either: huge (6 pixels), large (4 pixels), or small (2 pixels).
The Sectional Area Curve graph may be set to be a filled graph, a line graph, or a graph made up of discrete data points.
The sectional area curve may be set to graph:
§ Section Area.
§ Section Area / Maximum Section Area.
§ Section Area / Volume2/3.
Control Point Window Column Ordering.
In the Control Points window it is possible to view the points listed by row then column or by column then row. The reason for doing this is to simplify the pasting of single rows or columns into the Control Points window.
Sectional Area Curve Stations.
The sectional area curve may be set to use 13, 25 or 39 stations. For complex hulls it is better to use more stations, while for simple hulls it will be faster to calculate fewer stations.
Depending on the speed of your computer, select between: Update Frontmost Window Only; Update All Windows or Update All Windows Dynamically. On a slow computer, Update All Windows Dynamically may be too slow to use the program effectively.
This value is used when computing surface contours using Highest Precision. A lower tolerance value will give more precise contours.
This value is used to scale the curvature porcupines displayed on contours.
This value is used to scale the outside arrows displayed on surfaces.
This sets the maximum number of ‘undos’, which are stored and may be set to a value between 2 and 100. Setting too high a value may cause your computer to slow down since this will require considerable memory, the amount of memory used depends on the complexity of the model.
This sets the maximum number of items in the surfaces sub-menus before the More Surfaces… item is displayed.
Use Surface Colour for Drawing Parametrics
The parametric surface contours may be displayed in the global parametric contour colour or in the colour of the surface. This option can be useful for better visualising the design and distinguishing the different surfaces.