If there was a simple API to map from a 3D point to a 2D point the rendered output, then it would be much easier to superimpose text ourselves. However, if it's "pretty easy" to add Hershey Roman font into Tachyon itself, this would be a wonderful and well-used addition.
- Robert On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 8:22 PM, John Stone <[email protected]> wrote: > I've pondered adding text rendering as a built-in feature of Tachyon, > but up to this point I have resisted due to the complexity involved. > (whatever font set I would choose would undoubtably not be exactly the > right thing for any particular usage). The best way to do this is > usually to build the font code into the calling application, as it can > be used with multiple renderers and the rendered images can be made to > look exactly the same whether OpenGL, Tachyon, Renderman, POV-Ray, > etc. This is what I've done in VMD, the molecular visualization tool > I develop in my day job. In VMD, I use one of the public domain > Hershey vector font sets, with two simple APIs, one generates OpenGL > rendering commands, and the other is setup to be called to generate > the vector font strokes on-the-fly by any rendering API one would > want. Using this scheme, VMD generates line-based renderings within > OpenGL, and uses sequences of connected cylinders and spheres in ray > tracers or other renderers that don't have an exact equivalent of a > "line". Here are relevant VMD source files as examples: > Hershey.h: > http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/doxygen/Hershey_8h-source.html > Hershey.C: > http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/doxygen/Hershey_8C-source.html > > TachyonDisplayDevice.C (see the ::text method therein): > http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/doxygen/TachyonDisplayDevice_8C-source.html#l00153 > > I could add the Hershey Roman font I use in VMD into Tachyon pretty > easily, but it might be an even better idea to build this into SAGE > itself. What do others think? > > Cheers, > John Stone > [email protected] > > On Feb 6, 3:11 am, Robert Bradshaw <[email protected]> > wrote: >> IIRC, the ability to easily do text labels is something that is >> missing right now. It would be great to be able to attach some text to >> a point (we don't need shadows or anything fancy). We could probably >> even do this ourselves if there was an easy API to go from 3D point to >> 2D point in the output. >> >> - Robert >> >> On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 10:40 PM, William Stein <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Hi, >> >> > I have permission from the author of Tachyon to forward his message >> > below to the Sage list. He's basically interested in whether there is >> > _anything_ he could do to make Tachyon more useful for Sage. See >> > below. >> >> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> > From: John Stone <[email protected]> >> > Date: Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 10:56 PM >> > Subject: Feedback on Tachyon APIs used by SAGE, etc.. >> > To: William Stein <[email protected]> >> >> > Hi William, >> > I'm in the process of doing a bunch of updating of the >> > Tachyon header files and documentation and thought I'd send a >> > quick ping. I was wondering if the SAGE project wants or needs >> > anything changed or improved in the Tachyon APIs, since I'm already >> > doing some significant improvements for other projects. >> >> > I was also curious what portions of the Tachyon APIs are >> > exposed in SAGE now, and whether it might be time to >> > update SAGE to be able to take advantage of various new >> > Tachyon features such as ambient occlusion lighting and >> > other improvements that may not be exposed in the >> > current versions SAGE. >> >> > I would also be happy to have a look at your existing >> > Tachyon code and see if I notice anything that might be added >> > or improved if you can tell me where to look for it. >> >> > Cheers, >> > John Stone >> >> > -- >> > NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics >> > Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology >> > University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801 >> > Email: [email protected] Phone: 217-244-3349 >> > WWW:http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/ Fax: 217-244-6078 >> >> > -- >> > William Stein >> > Professor of Mathematics >> > University of Washington >> >http://wstein.org >> >> > -- >> > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected] >> > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to >> > [email protected] >> > For more options, visit this group >> > athttp://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel >> > URL:http://www.sagemath.org > > -- > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel > URL: http://www.sagemath.org > -- To post to this group, send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
