On Jun 25, 2013, at 9:02 PM, H.S.Rai wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 8:18 PM, Dave Caroline
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 4. Finally we will get rid of wireframes. However, we will be able to
>>> easily enable or disable shaded geometry or vice versa.
>> 
>> Why
> 
> Shaded geometry for better user experience. Shaded geometry off
> (Wireframe on) is for speed.

This perhaps was just poor wording.  "Getting rid of wireframes" means removing 
the feature.  That would be very bad.  There's no reason (and no plan) to 
remove wireframes as some users prefer them, some models cannot be visualized 
in full without them, and some editing operations *require* them.  I think we 
all realize the desire for and benefit of shaded displays, though.

Making wireframes not be the default is one of several reasons why we've been 
working on NURBS infrastructure.  Not understanding why this is required given 
our representation format is usually an indication that someone does not yet 
understand the fundamental problem... which is not meant to be taken in a 
negative way.  MOST people don't have experience with our particular problem 
domain which is specific to having mathematically-based implicit geometry 
representations along with boolean operations.

When most people say shaded display, they usually think of OpenGL, Direct3D, 
games, other modeling systems, etc.  Those systems are driven by polygons 
(triangles).  To have that style of shaded display, you have to have polygons.  
We do not have polygons.  We do not have a robust method for getting polygons.  
NURBS gives us a robust method.

When we can 1) convert any geometry to NURBS, 2) evaluate any booleans, and 3) 
tessellate NURBS robustly, it will be possible to have robust shaded displays 
for all geometry.  #1 was finished last year primarily thanks to Cliff and Wu.  
#3 was finished just this year primarily due to Keith.  Work on #2 is underway 
and is scheduled to be finished this year..

It's been a while since I've had to succinctly describe the problem and 
solution, so hopefully that is all understandable to everyone.  There are 
several independent tasks that will need to be completed is anyone wants to 
help us get there more quickly.  ;)

Cheers!
Sean


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by Windows:

Build for Windows Store.

http://p.sf.net/sfu/windows-dev2dev
_______________________________________________
BRL-CAD Developer mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/brlcad-devel

Reply via email to