I am running OpenDX on an SGI system with two large displays. I want to show the VPE on one display and the Image window on the second display. In X Windows terminology, I want to display the VPE on localhost:0.0 and the Image window on localhost:1.0. (The DX executive will also run on localhost.)
I have done some investigation on this and am seeking advice and comments from anyone who has done this type of dual display before. I also want to summarize my investigation in order to give guidance to anyone who wants to try this in the future. Helpful Background: I found the following items useful during my investigation: a. The document "Open Visualization Data Explorer Documentation (legacy) Building Applications" located at http://www.research.ibm.com/dx/docs/buildingapps/SuperviseState.html b. The documentation for Image, Display, SuperviseWindow, and SuperviseState in the OpenDX User's Reference. c. The sample macro, Image2Macro.net, located in the OpenDX samples source code in the directory dxsamples-4.3.0/macros. d. A discussion that occurred on this mailing list in Nov 2000. (Search the opendx-users list archives for the string "Image2".) By the way, I want to thank the author(s) of item (a) above--it is well written and very helpful. Current Status: At this point, I am able to display an image using the Image2 tool from the VPE with both the VPE and the Image2 window appearing on the same display. From what I can tell, the Image2 tool in the VPE is just the macro Image2Macro.net from the samples directory (correct me if I'm wrong). I am able to use the three different interaction modes in Image2 and I am able to set and use hardware rendering with the Image2 tool. Hints on Image2: For those who want to use Image2, here are a few helpful hints. a. I could not find any documentation on Image2, but it operates similarly to Image. b. Image2 uses "hardware" and "software" for renderMode, not "1" and "0" as with Image. c. The three interaction modes for Image2 are explained in the "Description..." window of the Image2 configuration window and also in document (a), above, under the heading "Default UserInteractors". My Problem: The difficulty I am having at the moment is whether to use Image2 or whether to create my own simple dual display using the combination of SuperviseWindow, SuperviseState, and Display. Image2 is already built and ready to use, but I cannot figure out how to display the Image2 window on a second display. That is, I cannot find the equivalent of the "display" input item on the SuperviseWindow module. On the other hand, I believe that the combination of SuperviseWindow, SuperviseState, and Display would give me what I want. The default user interactors for Display give me what I need for now and I can have hardware rendering by using the Options module as explained in document (a) and the Nov 2000 discussion. I would have to build the combination of the supervise and Display modules, but it doesn't look too hard. Also, are there any performance considerations? Image2 has far more functionality than I need (such as recording an image to a file). Am I likely to get better performance by using only the supervise and Display modules as opposed to Image2? Any comments, guidance, or experience on this matter would be appreciated. -- Peter M. Ketcham Computational Scientist National Institute of Standards and Technology Information Technology Laboratory Mathematical and Computational Sciences Division Scientific Applications and Visualization Group 100 Bureau Dr Stop 8911 Gaithersburg MD 20899-8911 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 301-975-5456 (W) 202-686-5247 (H)
