Duncan & Ben, Thanks for giving me some tips as to how I can best investigate packages. I"ve been using ESS-Emacs and the help pages are HTML. Looks like I need to figure out how to enable HTML help.
As for a draft vignette, sure, I would be happy (and honored) to contribute as best I can. I would need a lot of help from the two of you, but it would be a good learning experience for me and give me a chance to give something back to the community which has been so good to me. Speaking of vignettes, I wonder if there should be a vignette written called "navigating new functions and packages for the R beginner" or be included as a chapter in "An Introduction to R", which focuses on R-base functionality. I"m just musing here, but I often think that if I need to learn something perhaps others do too. One thing at a time, however, so I'll work on a draft and send it to you for comments and input. Ben, if you get such a list of packages with functions that depend on rgl, send it to me. Mark On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 7:02 AM, Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mark Kimpel wrote: >> >> Thanks for the pointers. I think the package is great, just want to >> use it to its full potential without driving the list crazy with >> questions. Below is my output to help and sessionInfo(). I don't see >> the scaling functions, although I now see that they can be retrieved >> with ?matrices. You guys are the experts as to what should go where, >> but for someone unfamiliar with how rgl works, having them print out >> with help(package = "rgl") would make some of these functions more >> obvious to the newbie. Mark >> > > The issue here is that several of those are documented on the same page, and > that index lists the names of help pages, not all of the aliases that point > there. The index in the HTML help version (or the CHM help in Windows) > repeats each alias, so you'll see things like > > scale3d Work with homogeneous coordinates > scaleMatrix Work with homogeneous coordinates > > as well as the entry for matrices as below. I can see arguments for both: > repetition is bad, full coverage is good. The index in the pdf document is > another approach: it lists all the aliases, and tells you which topic > documents them. > > All of this is common to all R packages; rgl isn't doing anything special to > produce these lists. > > Duncan Murdoch >> >> aspect3d Set the aspect ratios of the current plot >> axes3d Draw boxes, axes and other text outside the >> data >> ellipse3d Make an ellipsoid >> grid3d Add a grid to a 3D plot >> matrices Work with homogeneous coordinates >> par3d Set or Query RGL Parameters >> par3dinterp Interpolator for par3d parameters >> persp3d Surface plots >> play3d Play animation of rgl scene >> plot3d 3D Scatterplot >> points3d add primitive set shape >> qmesh3d 3D Quadrangle Mesh objects >> r3d Generic 3D interface >> rgl-package 3D visualization device system >> rgl.bbox Set up Bounding Box decoration >> rgl.bg Set up Background >> rgl.bringtotop Assign focus to an RGL window >> rgl.clear scene management >> rgl.light add light source >> rgl.material Generic Appearance setup >> rgl.postscript export screenshot >> rgl.primitive add primitive set shape >> rgl.setMouseCallbacks User callbacks on mouse events >> rgl.snapshot export screenshot >> rgl.spheres add sphere set shape >> rgl.surface add height-field surface shape >> rgl.texts add text >> rgl.user2window Convert between rgl user and window coordinates >> rgl.viewpoint Set up viewpoint >> select3d Select a rectangle in an RGL scene >> spin3d Create a function to spin a scene at a fixed >> rate >> sprites3d add sprite set shape >> subdivision3d generic subdivision surface method >> surface3d add height-field surface shape >> >> >> >>> >>> sessionInfo() >>> >> >> R version 2.7.1 (2008-06-23) >> i686-pc-linux-gnu >> >> locale: >> >> LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=C;LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C >> >> attached base packages: >> [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base >> >> other attached packages: >> [1] rgl_0.79 graph_1.18.1 >> >> loaded via a namespace (and not attached): >> [1] cluster_1.11.11 tools_2.7.1 >> >> On Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Duncan Murdoch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Mark Kimpel wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Ben and Duncan, >>>> >>>> Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I"m having some difficulty >>>> navigating this really good package using my normal learning >>>> techniques. When I do 'help(package = "rgl") it seems only a very >>>> small subset of functions available show up. >>>> >>> >>> I think the full list shows up there, if you're using a current version. >>> What specific function is missing? >>> >>>> >>>> Perusing the rgl.pdf >>>> downloaded from CRAN demonstrates the same lack of documentation. >>>> >>>> >>> >>> All of the functions intended for users are documented, and they show up >>> in >>> rgl.pdf. >>> >>>> >>>> There is no vignette. In addition, I have found at least one other >>>> package with 3d functions (emdbook::curve3d()). >>>> >>>> >>> >>> A vignette would be nice, but there isn't one. Our paper from useR 2007 >>> is >>> the most recent reference (see >>> >>> http://www.r-project.org/conferences/useR-2007/program/presentations/murdoch.pdf); >>> it cites Daniel's 2003 thesis and the 2003 paper about the package. >>> After those, the NEWS file lists some recent additions. >>> >>> emdbook makes use of rgl and some other 3d engines, as does misc3d. >>> scatterplot3d does it's own drawing. rggobi is a completely different >>> interactive package. >>> >>>> >>>> What is the best resource for learning about all the foo3d() and lower >>>> level functionality that rgl and its dependents provide? I saw a book >>>> at B&N just last week on openGL. Would that be helpful? >>>> >>>> >>> >>> It might, but probably not. rgl is intended to be a higher level R-style >>> interface to the things described in a book like that. So if you have a >>> particular question about how to do something, you'd never find it there. >>> On the other hand, if you want to know if something is possible, then >>> that >>> might be a place to look for ideas. >>> >>> Duncan Murdoch >>> >>>> >>>> Mark >>>> >>>> On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 10:54 PM, Ben Bolker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Mark Kimpel <mwkimpel <at> gmail.com> writes: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm using the command below on an open3d() object to create a shaded >>>>>> cube. Changes to myScalingFactor do not effect changes in the size of >>>>>> the cube. What is the correct approach? Mark >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> how about scale3d() ? >>>>> >>>>> shade3d(translate3d(scale3d(cube3d(),5,5,5),-6,1,-1),col="blue", alpha >>>>> = >>>>> 0.2) >>>>> shade3d(translate3d(cube3d(),-6,1,-1),col="green", alpha = 0.2) >>>>> shade3d(translate3d(scale3d(cube3d(),10,10,10),-6,1,-1),col="red", >>>>> alpha >>>>> = 0.2) >>>>> >>>>> ______________________________________________ >>>>> R-help@r-project.org mailing list >>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >>>>> PLEASE do read the posting guide >>>>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >>>>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> > > -- Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry Indiana University School of Medicine 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074 (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail (317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please) ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.