William wrote: > I have to say though, having tried the Java3d based 3d graphics > that Robert Bradshaw wrote for Sage, that's going to be the way to go. > It's incredibly robust and FAST even for huge complicated scenes. I mean, > that library really feels professional / state of the art / like > something people > could write serious video games in and math graphics. I just don't see that > for any other graphics-in-the-notebook option I've seen so far. > > My money's on Java3d.
I have been studying this issue for a few months now and here is my current thinking on it. I agree that Java3D with SAGE would be an excellent combination, but I don't think we are going to get Java3D to run satisfactorily in a browser any time soon without it being a source of endless support headaches. This may change if Sun ever decides to bundle Java3D with JavaSE. In the mean time, this is one reason why I have been working on the SAGEIDE alternative to the browser-based notebook. SAGEIDE currently has Java3D running in it with few problems and here is a list of its other benefits: - Complete customization of the IDE using Python (via Jython). Extremely rich and powerful client-side 2D and 3D GUI extensions and applications can be created on top of SAGEIDE using Python syntax. - Syntax highlighting for SAGE source code along with an easy way to add syntax highlighting for any package that SAGE uses. - Can save code and objects on the client. - Contains all of the functionality of a typical programmer's text editor. - Has a plugin architecture built into it. The plugins can be written in a number of languages (including Jython) and they are easily installable from the web. - Is powerful enough to match anything the Mathematica notebook can do if people desire this level of functionality. Here is a current screenshot of SAGEIDE running a Java3D demo program: http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/tkosan/sageide/sageide_with_java3d.png And if people would like to try SAGEIDE with Java3D for themselves, it can be obtained here (Windows and Linux only for now): http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/tkosan/sageide Just follow the instructions in the README file. As for interactive graphics in the browser notebook, I think that the JMathPlot applet provides fairly nice capabilities that a number of users would probably like to use if they were available. JMathPlot is small, it doesn't depend on OpenGL being properly installed on the client, and it works right now. The main thing that is needed at this point is a solid SAGE/Client communications mechanism for rich graphic clients like SAGEIDE and the JMathPlot applet. Ted --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
