In the context of this discussion let me recall a much earlier email from Mike Dewar:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/axiom-developer/2002-11/msg00151.html Re: [Axiom-developer] Windows front end Subject: Re: [Axiom-developer] Windows front end Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 10:24:19 +0000 On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 10:35:20AM -0500, Tim Daly wrote: <snip> > Mike Dewar wrote: > > 1. Graphics: On Unix this is done with a combination of bespoke > > Axiom data structures and some pretty convoluted X-Windows code. > > On Windows we added facilities to create OpenInventor data structures > > (OpenInventor is the basis for VRML - the virtual reality markup > > language). The Inventor geometries were then exported to a little > > application we wrote based on the standard SceneViewer application > > you get with many OpenInventor toolkits. The results were definitely > > superior to the Unix version. > > Is the "little application" in the code we have? If not, would NAG > be willing to share it? No and no :-( As I said its based on something which was part of the Inventor toolkit we were using and that is a commercial product which we were licensing. However it shouldn't be too difficult to find a free VRML viewer and adapt that. > I'm happy to hear that work was done to make the graphics more open. > One of the stated goals on the homepage is to "give away" the graphics. > I was planning to enhance the abilities of some other open source > product (like GNUPlot) with the facilities available in Axiom. That > way they gain with new function and we gain because we don't have to > support the graphics any more. I think we looked at GNUPlot and decided it wasn't good enough because it lacked many of the features for manipulating 3D images that were in the Unix version. Using Open Inventor/VRML means you can export images to industrial-strength visualisation packages which was important to us. After we released Axiom under Windows, Maple moved their graphics onto OpenGL (the toolkit Open Inventor is built on) so we're not the only people who think that this is a good approach :-) Of course GNUplot has probably come a long way since we looked at it and may be suitable for your needs, but I doubt its as good as Mathematica and Maple's offerings. > The graphics facility is useful and necessary but the expertise > needed to do it right is a whole other field of research. Scott > Morrison did the graphics and he's no longer following computer > algebra. Don't underestimate the importance of visualisation and computer algebra. Over the years I've met a number of users who chose Axiom primarily because of its graphics. > If you happen to have some useful web and/or book references I'd > appreciate it if you mention them to the group. http://www.web3d.org/vrml/vrml.htm seems to be a good place to start investigating VRML. ... ----------- In the meantime VRML has evolved into X3D. See http://www.web3d.org/x3d/overview.html And OpenInventor is now available as open source http://oss.sgi.com/projects/inventor and is apparently also available for native Windows http://www.studierstube.org/openinventor I think the concepts discussed here by Tim and Mike still apply, maybe even more so. If Axiom graphics needs to be re-written and/or modified to be more portable between linux and Windows then I definitely think that consideration should be given to compatibility with the web as well. X3D/VRML seems to me to be a good approach. This looks especially attractive in the context of the MathAction website since it would allow Axiom graphics to be served in a compatible manner between the desktop and a remote graphics browser. This is also obviously important for the Doyen project. It seems quite clear that what we called "computer graphics" yesterday is just going to be some limited form of virtual reality display in the near future. From my point of view, if we have to invest significant effort in re-developing things, then we should aim as high as is practical. Otherwise it would be better I think to just take the shorter path (involving Cygwin as described previously). As far as I can tell right now the only cross-platform desktop X3G browser is dependent on java http://www.xj3d.org but that might change in the next few months as more options become available. In any case, perhaps we should seriously consider trying to recover NAG's work on OpenInventor in Axiom graphics. Regards, Bill Page. _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
