William Stein wrote: > On 1/14/08, Jason Grout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> I noticed a potentially confusing thing in the totally awesome 3d >> graphics we now have with jmol. >> >> sage: arrow3d((0,0,0),(1,1,1)) >> >> draws a very nice-looking 3d arrow in a bounding cube. When I >> right-click on the graphic and choose "View | front", it swings the >> viewpoint around so that I'm looking at the *top* of the original cube >> (so that I'm looking in the direction of the negative z-axis). I >> realize that the standard computer graphics viewpoint has the z-axis >> coming out of the monitor, so "front" is a valid label for this position >> in that sense, but it can be confusing to students who would have said >> that what is labeled as the "front" position is actually showing the top >> of graph. I imagine that it would be even more confusing to calc 3 >> students that the labeled "top" position is looking in the negative >> y-axis direction *with the positive z pointing down*. >> >> The positions and actual viewing directions are thus: >> >> "front" = looking down negative z-axis, positive y-axis pointing up >> "back" = looking down positive z-axis, positive y-axis pointing up >> >> "left" = looking down positive x-axis, positive y-axis pointing up >> "right" = looking down negative x-axis, positive y-axis pointing up >> >> "top" = looking down negative y-axis, positive z-axis pointing *down* >> "bottom" = looking down positive y-axis, positive z-axis pointing up >> >> I think it would be less confusing if the View menu just listed viewing >> directions instead of assigning a "up" and "down" metaphor that can >> change depending on if you are doing math or doing computer science. >> > > I agree. That menu is obviously aimed squarely at chemistry, > and will need to be heavily modified for Sage. Please post a trac ticket > with your above comments though.
Trac #1777 Thanks, Jason --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
