Miscellaneous

mi_api_delete
    miBoolean mi_api_delete(
        char            *what)     /* element to delete */

Delete a single element from the scene database. This function may be used only after all references to the element have been deleted. For example, before deleting an object all instances referencing it must be deleted, or incrementally changed to reference something else, and so on.

mi_api_delete_tree
    miBoolean mi_api_delete_tree(
        char            *what)     /* element to delete */

Delete a tree anchored at the named element in the scene database. This function takes care of deleting all members of the tree in the proper order such that references to an element are removed before the element itself is deleted, but only within the named tree - multiple instancing from outside is not recognized, and outside references to what itself are also not removed.

mi_api_touch
    miBoolean mi_api_touch(
        char            *what)     /* element to touch */

Mark the named toplevel scene element for re-evaluation. This is useful to mark objects for retessellation when a displacement shader or one of its direct or indirect subshaders changes (mental ray cannot discover this by itself), or when the content of a texture file has changed on disk and need to be reloaded.

mi_api_debug
    miBoolean mi_api_debug(
        char            *what,     /* what to dump */
        char            *arg)      /* if scene dump, item */

This function is useful for debugging code that calls the API module. It is not essential for scene definition. The what argument specifies what to check, and the arg argument specifies the name of a scene element to be checked, depending on what is being checked. The following what strings are supported:

what arg operation
sym - print all symbol tables
sym global - print the global (.mi2) symbol table
sym declare - print the declaration symbol table
sym options - print the .mi1 options symbol table
sym camera - print the .mi1 camera symbol table
sym light - print the .mi1 light symbol table
sym object - print the .mi1 object symbol table
sym instance - print the .mi1 instance symbol table
sym group - print the .mi1 instance group symbol table
sym material - print the .mi1 material symbol table
sym ctexture - print the .mi1 color texture symbol table
sym stexture - print the .mi1 scalar texture symbol table
sym vtexture - print the .mi1 vector texture symbol table
mem summary - print per-module MEM memory usage summary
mem dump - print all allocated MEM memory blocks
mem check - run a consistency check on MEM memory
db statistics - print DB database access statistics
db dump - print a list of all DB database entries
task statistics - print TASK task queue statistics
img verbose - future image file accesses print messages
scene check element consistency check of a scene element
scene dump element recursively print info on scene element
scene alldump element recursively print detailed element info

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