The Spreadsheet

The spreadsheet view displays scene information about elements and their parameters in a grid. This information is filtered and organized by queries that you create to show specific aspects of your scene in combination with sorting operations you can perform based on object data. You can then perform operations on many elements or parameters at once.

A	Query: Choose a query.
B	View: Set display options.
C	Update: Apply modifications to cells. Alternatively, press Enter.
D	Rerun the query (if you have changed the scene outside of the spreadsheet.
E	Each row represents a scene element. Click a row heading to select all of an element's properties. Right-click the row to select objects in your scene.
F	Each column represents a parameter. Click a column heading to select a parameter on all of the displayed objects. Right-click a heading to quickly sort elements and mark parameters for animation.
G	The intersection between a row and a column is called a cell, each of which holds one value. You can select many cells at once and modify them all simultaneously

Displaying a Spreadsheet View

Do one of the following:

Press Alt+3 (at the top of the keyboard, not the numeric keypad) or choose View General Spreadsheet from the main menu to open in a floating window.

or
Choose Spreadsheet from a viewport's Views menu to open it docked in that viewport.

Using Queries

A query is a means of requesting information filtered a specific way for display in the spreadsheet. For example, you could query Softimage for a list of local rotation values for only selected objects. Queries are text files with a .query extension; default queries are located in %SI_HOME%\Application\Queries.

You can execute a query by using one of the predefined queries found in the spreadsheet's Query menu, or you can choose Query Open to load a query file you have created. For more information about creating custom queries, see Spreadsheet Queries [SDK Guide].

Once you have executed a query and the spreadsheet displays the data you have requested, you can further organize the information by sorting the table. Right-click any column heading to sort the table entries based on the column's entries. To return to the default sorting as defined in the .query file, choose Query Sort from the spreadsheet menu.

Updating the Spreadsheet Display

The spreadsheet display is not updated as the scene or the current frame is modified in Softimage. To update the spreadsheet to reflect current scene information, click Execute.

NoteThe spreadsheet reruns the query when you click Execute. To update only currently listed elements, for example, if you have changed parameter values outside the spreadsheet but not added any objects to the scene, click the Update button instead.

Navigating within the Spreadsheet

You can highlight and edit spreadsheet cells using the keyboard or the mouse. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor within the spreadsheet, or click on a cell to highlight it. You can also highlight multiple cells using a variety of methods:

Holding the Shift key while using the arrow keys extends the highlighted area as a rectangular region.
Shift-clicking creates a highlighted rectangular region spanning from the first highlighted cell to the cell that was Shift+clicked. You can also create a rectangular region by dragging the mouse from one cell to another.
Ctrl+clicking adds a single cell to the selection. Ctrl+dragging adds a rectangular region to the selection.
Clicking a column heading or row title highlights the entire column or row. Use the Shift and Ctrl keys or drag the mouse to highlight multiple columns or rows, or add columns or rows to the selection.
Clicking the upper-left corner of the spreadsheet highlights the entire spreadsheet's contents.

NoteHighlighting a cell does not select the object or the parameter in the scene.

Editing Cell Contents

Generally, editing one cell changes all highlighted cells of the same type when you press Enter. That is, if you change a numeric cell, all highlighted numeric cells are also changed; any non-numeric highlighted cells remain unchanged. Cells with dark gray contents cannot be edited.

You can edit spreadsheet cells, depending on the mouse button you use:

Left-click edits a highlighted cell.
Middle-click or right-click edits a cell without changing the value of other highlighted cells.

Selecting Elements in the Spreadsheet

To select scene elements listed in the spreadsheet

Right-click the row header for the element that you want to select and choose Select Item from the menu.

To select multiple scene elements

Multi-select their row headers, right-click one of them, and choose Select Item from the pop-up menu.

To add a scene element to the current selection,

Right-click on its row header and choose Add Item to Selection.