Facsimile Simulation Library

A file reference identifies the location of a supported, 3D graphics file on a local or networked storage device; the file is read in and processed when the cell file is loaded. The following type-specific parameters are required, typically formatted as follows:

FilePath<nl>

where FilePath is the name, including an absolute or relative path, to the file referenced and <nl> is the newline sequence. If a relative path is used, then the search starts from the current directory.

The POSIX path separator character "/" can be used in place of the Windows path separator "\"; since it is more portable, the POSIX separator is preferred.

Note that the file path cannot contain any whitespace characters; such characters will cause the filename to be parsed as more than one token; the first token only will be used as the file path with the second token being taken as the cell type of the next cell entity.

The file's contents will be positioned such that the file's X, Y and Z axes align with the file reference's local axes and the file's origin will be placed at the file reference's origin.

Note that if the referenced file is in a format that follows the left-hand-rule for geometry, then an appropriate geometry adjustment must be made for the image to be loaded correctly; the simplest is for the file reference to define a 90 degree rotation about the X-axis.

A referenced file is only included in the image when it is referenced by an instance element. The file reference cell element itself is included within the first instance cell element that references it; file references cannot be included within a set and are not included in the member count of the set that contains the first instance.

It is recommended that file references be assigned a unique name, to avoid unexpected behavior during dereferencing.