I'm far away from being a DX expert. But once I needed to draw a set of vectors at different positions in space and with different directions. If I'm understanding all right your problem now is on how to associate the positions at wich your vectors are located in space with the vectors' coordinates. Well, the way I did this (maybe there is a more professional way to do it) was to write in the same file positions and vector coordinates. That is, I wrote a file with 6 columns: [x y z vx vy vz] where (x,y,z) is the spatial location (position) of a vector with coordinates (vx,vy,vz). Doing it this way DX associates one position with one vector, row by row.
However, I don't read the data as a "Spreadsheet format file". Instead I use "Scattered data". I am a DX newbie, so I'll try to show you a really simple way (the most simple, i think) of plotting 3d-vectors with DX. Let me explain it step by step, as to a 5-year-old kid, because that is the only way I find these explanations usefull.
- First of all prepare your data file with 6 columns [x y z vx vy vz]
- Open DX and select "Import Data..."
- Choose your data filename
- Select "Grid or scattered file"
- In "Grid type" select the dotted square (on the right), named "Scattered data"
- Set "Number of variables" to 1
- Activate the item "Positions in data file"
- Set "Dimension:" to 3
- Click on "Describe Data..."
- In this new window set "# of Points" to the amount of vectors you have (~450?)
- On the right column there is a "Field list" with two items: "locations" and "field0". The "locations" item referes to the positions in space where your vectors will be plotted, and "field0" will refer to your vectors' coordinates.
- Select the "field0" item and in the "Structure" selector choose "3-vector". Click on "Modify"
- Save this file as a *.general file. Now DX knows how to read your data.
- Close this window and return to the last one. There click on "Visualize Data..."
- Here in the "Image" window you should see a lot of thin 'needles', representing your data. From the menu select "Windows -> Open Visual Program Editor".
- If you want you can change the "Glyph" type by double-clicking the "AutoGlyph" tool and changing "type" (from "speedy", set by default) to "rocket" (my favourite) or wathever you want...
Samuel.
