Hi Martin, Let me preface my remarks by saying that my main focus with panaxia has been and still is developing a web interface. I restrict my efforts simply because the time I can afford to devote to the project is quite limited.
On 12/22/2010 10:33 AM, Martin Baker wrote: > Hi Arthur, > > On Wednesday 22 Dec 2010 06:07:21 Arthur Ralfs wrote: >> I've committed Martin Baker's Scenegraph graphics framework under >> ar-sandbox/contrib/scenegraph. > > That's great, I am looking forward to trying it once its on openSUSE Build > Service. Is somebody working on that? > >> I've also included the input file >> scene.input to compile everything and input files to run the examples >> from Martin's website here >> >> http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/standards/program/mycode/graph/examples >> /index.htm >> >> and here >> >> http://www.euclideanspace.com/maths/standards/program/mycode/graph/tutorial >> /index.htm > > How difficult would it be to put these pages on HyperDoc? (personally I like > the idea of HyperDoc pages as HTML as it might be able to be rendered by more > standard library code but I suspect i'm in the minority on that issue so > perhaps I shouldn't try to reopen that debate?). I've never much liked HyperDoc and it's always been in the back of my mind to work on that, like what I did with the Axiom book in xhtml+mathml, although now with your work we need something like xhtml+mathml+svg+x3d+webgl.... I'll have to look at your html work too but my immediate interest is in using your work, in conjunction with webgl capability appearing in recent browser builds, to enable graphics in my browser interface. > > Also, what do you think it would take to make this graphics framework the > default graphics framework? I guess it would need the ability to render itself > directly from openaxiom? Again I would have thought that some form of standard > OpenGL library code should be available? I would say that yours will become default if people like it better. I never much liked the old framework either. Both it and hyperdoc seem clunky and dated. In terms of using the old framework for my own project I didn't like the one way communication, spad -> C, and of course the near total lack of documentation in the C code is annoying. I wondered whether or not it was worth reusing the C code or throwing it out. With your work, and for my purposes, it looks like throwing out is looking good. I'm not sure what you mean by render itself directly from openaxiom. The webgl capability being introduced in the latest browser builds is based on opengl es 2.0 which is a stripped down opengl for mobile devices. The mozilla people are talking about adding more opengl capability as extensions to webgl. Certainly I think doing as much as possible in openaxiom makes sense. So right now to do a 3d plot in the browser interface I could presumably send your x3d representation to the browser and then parse it with javascript and convert it into the webgl commands, but it makes sense to me to do more of that in openaxiom before sending it out. However ultimately webgl is a javascript binding to opengl es 2.0 so the javascript has to be executed in the browser. If you're interested in desktop rendering then we need an opengl package/domain that can produce either full opengl or the stripped down webgl. > > It just seemed to me that the combination of: > * The new C++ code, > * some standard HTML code library, > * new graphics framework + standard OpenGL library code, > would help remove a lot of older messy code and make openaxiom more > streamlined and easier to add new features. However I don't claim to > understand all the issues here and I'm sure it would be a lot harder than > that. I agree something like this is the way to go. I can't see openaxiom, or the other panaxia for that matter, becoming very popular without a more agreeable and modern interface. I first tried Axiom in the late 90's. At the time I was fully immersed in Mathematica, provided for free at the applied math computing centre, and when I looked at the Axiom command line interface I wasn't very impressed. Subsequently I saw the light and now won't touch Mathematica, but the issue with the axiom interface remains. I plan to continue working on this as time permits and having somebody else thinking similarly will be motivating. Arthur > > Anyway, thanks again for putting this in openaxiom. > > Martin Baker > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn how Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) One Node allows customers to consolidate database storage, standardize their database environment, and, should the need arise, upgrade to a full multi-node Oracle RAC database without downtime or disruption http://p.sf.net/sfu/oracle-sfdevnl _______________________________________________ open-axiom-devel mailing list open-axiom-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/open-axiom-devel
