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. William --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
