Wingeom - Basics

Wingeom - Basics
for preparing geometric diagrams for the web

I am developing a web site explaining various mathematical processes that interest me. As part
of this exercise I need to draw many geometric diagrams,and I tried several tools, including

· Open Office Draw

· Serif DrawPlus
· Paint.Net
· Google Sketchup

But in the end decided to use Wingeom.

Wingeom

This fascinating program was developed by a teacher (R D Parris I think) at Phillips Exeter
Academy, in Exeter, NH USA and appears to still be active. You can download for free from
http://math.exeter.edu/rparris/wingeom.html
There are other related programs that are also distributed free under the name of
Peanuts Software. I expect that I will also be using their Winplot program.

Reason for document

I often find I can spend some hours of work determining how to do some action or other and
when I want to do it again some week or months later, cannot remember how I did it and have
to spend the same time figuring it out again.
So now I have developed the practise of recording things as I do them, this may take the form of

· Taking a screen shot

· Entry in blog
· Page on web site
· PDF document

The above is in ascending order of difficulty and/or size.

This is the first document I have written for Wingeom and will add to it as I learn more in one
of the above four ways, and link them all together through my Maths Tools for Web
Development Blog. It is basically an annotated collection of screen shots.

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 Wingeom - Basics

Wingeom has a two phase startup.

First screen contains a tip, which I read and then

close.

You need to select either 2 or 3 dimensional

drawing.

To date I have not needed 3D, so select

Windows -> 2D.

Note: In typical Windows fashion if there is a

shortcut key it is shown in the menu. In this case
it is F2

This is the standard work window of Wingeom. It can be resized in the usual windows
method by dragging its side or corners.

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 Wingeom - Basics

In the process of drawing you often need to switch to various modes. This
can be achieved by selecting the Btns menu, but I prefer to have this
menu open as a toolbox which can be achieved by selecting the Toolbar
option in the Btns menu.

I then drag this toolbar just off to the right of the Wingeom window.

The x,y axes can be turned on

and off.

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 Wingeom - Basics

My screen layout is now as above.

Select Point and then Coordinates to display following

window where you can enter the coordinates of points
you want to create.

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You can also add pints by having Btns in Segments mode and clicking right hand button.

To connect the points A,B,C with lines

with arrows to show general directions
select Line - Rays and add them to the
list in the box provided.

Alternatively set Btns to Rays and

connect by dragging mouse with left
button clicked from D to A, D to B and
D to C

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To add arrows to these rays select

Edit > Highlights > Markings

In the markings box click the down arrow at the

bottom left and select ray/vector, type in the and
points of the ray in the “Where” box in the line
above.

In my case I did not want solid arrows. To change

this deselect the “Other” menu and deselect “Solid
arrowheads..” see next page.

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To rearrange the diagram so that it concentrates on

the important pieces select View > Window.

The result is shown in the window below. It does

not look a lot different from the previous one
because I cropped the screenshot to fit the page, in
its entirety it has a lot of waste space in the lower
half.

Note Alt-W is the shortcut key.

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If you want to change the diagram, in this example I have moved point C
up and to the left. To do this first select “drag vertices” in the Btns
Toolbar.

This so far is a very simple drawing and the power of this command is
shown in more advanced drawings. It maintains all the links you have set,
which in our simple drawing is just the ray from D to C.

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Add point E on DC
Select Point > on Segment

In the “new point” identify the segment CD and specify1/5 of the way along
segment from C towards D.

Alternatively just confirm that Btns is

set to Segment and right click where
the new point is to be, and as long as
it is close to the segment it should
snap onto it.

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 Wingeom - Basics

Draw Perpendicular

Select Line > Perpendiculars > Altitudes

And in the “draw altitude “ box identify the line that it
is to be perpendicular to, and the point through which
it is to pass.

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Change Point Letter

Set Btns to “text edit”

Place mouse over the letter to be

changed and right click and in the
“new label..” box type the required
letter.

To move the letter to another

position click left button and drag.

Remove axes
Select Window > View > Axes to switch axes on
and off.

Short cut key is Ctrl+A

The following shows drawing after axes removed, various letters changed and additional perpendiculars
are added.

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Intersection Point

Select Line > Coordinates > Line-Line

In the “intersection” box type the lines that cause the
intersection.
Alternatively just use right button when over the
intersection

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Line attributes
Select Edit > Highlites > Line Attributes
This opens the “line attributes” and the colours boxes.
Type in the lines to change and select thickness and colour and click on
apply.
Note I discovered that if thickness is greater than one then solid is the
only line style that is used, even though others may be specified. I
suspect this is a bug.

Mistake
Now this was not the result I was
hoping for, I did not want the whole
ray changed but rather just the
segments ON,OD and OP.
To rectify this you need to delete the
rays and build the segments first, as
shown in following pages.

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Delete line
Select Edit > Delete > Line and in the “delete line” box identify the lines to be deleted. I deleted OD
which removed the whole ray.

This time build segment first, select Line > Segments, and rebuilt segments OD and OM by using
Line > Segment and typing in names in “segment” box. Finally rebuild ray and add arrow as before.

Repeat for OB and OC.

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Line attributes are now restricted to the required segments.

Rebuild the rays.

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Result after rays built and line attributes are modified. Note that OM is dashed.

Save
Don’t forget to save regularly.

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Background Colour

Select Other > Colors > Background

And then select colour from colour box. I selected white.

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Fonts
I wanted a larger font for the letters so that when I
reduced size of final image suitable for web page the
letters would not become hard to read.
Select
Edit > Labels > Font
And then make appropriate choices in the font box.
Note. Alternatively you can turn off labels when
finished and rewrite them after the drawing has been
resized in an image manipulation program, like
Faststone Image Viewer, Paint.Net, PhotoShop etc.
To do this select
Edit > Labels >letters on/off
Or use shortcut key Alt+L

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Adding angle arcs

In mathematical diagrams one often needs to mark

angles with a small arc near their vertices. This is
achieved by selecting
Edit > Highlights > Markings
And then in the “Markings” box click on the down
arrow for the type and select “angle arc”. Type in the
identity of the angles, one at a time (you do not need
to prefix with angle sign < or use upper case) and
click on mark.

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 Wingeom - Basics

Free text

Text can be entered anywhere on the drawing.

Make sure that Btns is set to text, right click
where you want the text to be and the “edit text”
box will appear where you can type in the
required text.

Font

By clicking on the Font box within the “edit text”

window you can choose font and set details.

The settings are remembered for the next time you

enter text.
I used this to enter x and y for the angle arcs.

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Adjusting Highlights
As an example to change arc size. Select
Edit > Highlights > Arc radius
and set arc radius to required size.

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Measurements
Although I do not use it in this example you can make various measurements by selecting Meas tab and
then entering the id of what you want to measure. The results will be displayed on the drawing top left,
but you can drag this to another position if you wish.
Note I have found that unlike all the other boxes we have investigated you have to use the correct case
So <hon is not the same as <HON.

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Extending lines
I wanted to extend the line OM to the left, just for visual effect.

Select Line > Extensions and then identify line in the “extensions on/off”
box.

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Perpendicular bracket
It aids understanding to indicate perpendicular lines.

This is achieved by selecting

Edit > Highlights > Markings

And in the markings box click down arrow for type

and select “perp bracket”.

Identify angle in the where box and click on mark.

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Final drawing is shown below.

Metafile
As well as saving drawing in its own
Wingeom format you can save as a an
emf file (Extended Windows Metafile
Format).

This can be opened directly by other

programs such as Open Office and MS
Office.

Note. The Wingeom saves files as

xxx.wg2 and wg2 is also used by IBM-
Lotus for spread sheet files and are of
course not compatible

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Preparing for web page

I use PNG (Portable Network Graphic) files for my web diagrams.
To convert to this type I copy final drawing as a bit map and type it
into an image manipulation program, such as Paint.Net, Photoshop
or Serif PhotoPlus.

Before copying I make sure the High Resolution is turned on.

Whilst the image manipulation program I may take the opportunity

to colour fill any parts of the image to help understanding. There are
facilities to do this in Wuingeom but I find it quicker to do it
afterwards.

In Wingeom you select Edit > Highlights > Fill region and type in
the are identifiers.

Finally I may resize further to make suitable size for online use,
making sure that the reduction does not effect legibility.

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Final Result

After adding some colour to the angle arcs in PhotoPlus to clarify that the upper x refers to angle KPN
and not just KPR.

You can see the drawing in my Roderickt - Maths web pages by clicking here.

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