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Save Selection

File → Save Selection As… (Ctrl+Alt+S) writes the nodes you have selected to a node CSV of their own, leaving the open scene untouched. Use it to pull a single hyperglyph out of a crowded scene, to split one dataset into per-region files, or to lift a shape you like into a reusable building block.

The menu item is greyed out until something is selected.

Why this is not just "save the highlighted rows"

A selection is rarely a self-contained scene, and the interesting part of the feature is what happens to the nodes whose parents stay behind.

In a node CSV, a child's translate_x/y/z is not a position — it is a coordinate in its parent's topology. A child of a Sphere parent at (30, 45, 5) means "longitude 30°, latitude 45°, 5 units above the surface." A root's translate, on the other hand, is a literal world position. So a node lifted out of its hierarchy and saved as-is reloads somewhere else entirely — and a World Grid child, whose translate is longitude and latitude, lands off the map completely.

GlyphViz handles that for you. The dialog's middle group is the choice:

Option What it does
Keep it where it is (default) Folds the missing parents' placement into the node itself, so the saved fragment reopens exactly where it appeared, at the same size and angle. Its own children ride along untouched.
Save its parent nodes too Writes the ancestor chain as well, so the hierarchy stays intact. Perfectly faithful, but the file then contains glyphs you did not select.
Keep its authored values Leaves translate/rotate/scale exactly as written. The fragment lands near the origin in its old parent's local coordinates — what you want when reusing a glyph as a template, not when saving a region of a scene.

The default is exact, not approximate: reopen the file and every exported node sits on the same pixel it did in the source scene.

What travels with the selection

Everything below happens automatically — you only choose the three options in the dialog.

  • Descendants. A selected node brings its whole subtree, the way Copy and Delete already do. Uncheck Include each selected node's descendants to write only the highlighted rows.
  • Links. A link (type 7) whose nodes at both ends are in the export is written too, even if you never selected the link itself. A link with only one end present is dropped rather than left pointing at nothing.
  • Scene settings. The World row — background color, fog, render mode, tag and reference-grid colors — is written at the head of the file, so the fragment reopens with the same look.
  • Tags. The companion tag CSV is written whenever the exported nodes carry any labels, under the matching name (fragment_gv_node.csv → fragment_gv_tag.csv).
  • Channel animation. If the open scene has a Channels pair loaded, the export writes …_ch-map.csv / …_ch-tracks.csv companions holding only the channels the exported nodes are bound to. Uncheck the box to skip them.
  • Node ids keep their original values, so an exported fragment stays easy to line up against the scene it came from.

Branch levels are restated to match the new hierarchy, so a node that was three levels deep becomes a proper root at level 0.

What the status bar tells you afterwards

The message after a save names anything the export had to decide for you:

  • N re-rooted — nodes whose parent stayed behind, handled per the option you chose above.
  • N link(s) dropped — the node at the other end wasn't in the selection.
  • N approximated — a rare case: a node with a stretched (non-uniformly scaled) parent that is also rotated has a shape no combination of rotate + scale can reproduce on its own. The export writes the closest match and tells you which nodes are affected. Choose Save its parent nodes too if you need those exact.
  • N with motion rates now moving in world space — translate_rate on a Sphere child orbits it in longitude; the same numbers on a root drift it through world XYZ. The values are preserved, but their frame of reference changed.

Things worth knowing

  • Textures don't follow the file. texture_id is an index into the media/ folder sitting beside the CSV, so a fragment saved elsewhere loses its textures. Save into a folder that has the same media/ folder, or copy media/ across whole — copying part of it renumbers everything.
  • Give the fragment its own folder if it has Channels companions. GlyphViz only auto-loads a channel pair when the folder contains exactly one ch-map file, so exporting next to another animated scene leaves neither loadable.
  • Keep the name ending in node. The suggested filename already does. The tag companion's name is derived by swapping that node for tag, so a name ending otherwise means no tag file is written (the status bar says so).
  • Global Scale. The baked placement is exact at the Global Scale in force when you save. Reopening the fragment at a different Global Scale keeps it where it was rather than where its old parent would now put it.

Round-tripping it back

A saved selection is an ordinary node CSV: open it (Ctrl+O), drop it on the window, or merge it back into another scene with File → Merge Node CSV… (Ctrl+M), which rebases its ids onto the host scene. Save Selection plus Merge is how you move a piece of one scene into another.

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