[osg-users] Tutorials

[Valeriu Schneider]

Hi,

Where can I learn OSG from? Something like books, tutorials etc.

Thank you!

Cheers,
Valeriu

--
Read this topic online here:
http://forum.openscenegraph.org/viewtopic.php?p=51160#51160





___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Peterakos]

Hello

Here are the books + quick guide:
http://www.openscenegraph.com/index.php/documentation/books

And you can also download the source code of many examples using svn:
http://www.openscenegraph.com/index.php/downloads/code-repositories

thnx.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[michael kapelko]

I personally read Wang Rui books and recommend those (found in the first
link).

2012/12/6 Peterakos hay...@gmail.com

 Hello

 Here are the books + quick guide:
 http://www.openscenegraph.com/index.php/documentation/books

 And you can also download the source code of many examples using svn:
 http://www.openscenegraph.com/index.php/downloads/code-repositories

 thnx.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Speed]

Paul Speed wrote:
 
 Robert Osfield wrote:
 On 8/27/07, Jean-Sébastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 P.S.
 It seems to me to not have received the original Robert message, It is
 not the first ime I got a reply to a message I' ve never received.
 has it  occured to anyone else?
 Yes, me. No idea why, nor how to fix it, but I've seen it happen about
 3 times in the last week...
 Mailman on the new dreamhost server doesn't seem to be as reliable as
 it should be. I am no mail, mailman or web admin expert so I can't say
 why exact these problems exist.  Is it a dreamhost problem on
 delivery?  Is is peoples on mail servers rejecting mail?

 Just a point of reference, the last time we moved mailing list servers
 there was quite a bit of fallout w.r.t the mail server being
 blacklisted so people wouldn't receive mail from it.  The blacklisting
 can be a local issue or one centrally managed.

 I suspect this is an issue with false positives where spam filters and
 blacklisting is used as much  as anything else.

 Robert.
 
 For what it's worth, I too have missed several e-mails from the list... 
 some from you specifically.  I know about them because I see the responses.
 
 I only mention it because a) I have basically no spam filtering at all, 
 and b) I receive many other messages (from you specifically) just fine.
 
 Just adding evidence (or removing possible red herrings) for anyone 
 trying to debug this issue.
 
 -Paul

Interesting that I'm just now seeing this.  I didn't realize how many 
messages I was actually missing until they started coming in over the 
last four days... several hundred and still coming it looks like.

Kind of fun to relive a little history I guess though I did initially 
freak when the list traffic spiked. :)  One of the oddest mailing list 
quirks I've seen in a while.

No action required, just commiserating.
-Paul
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Peter Gebauer]

 In my perception forums will be more scalable if the user community 
 grows, because you can not expect every member to follow all discussions 
 that are currently happening (or happened if you were on vacation for two 
 weeks).

Or you get a decent MUA. Getting an additional login AND having to run a 
browser to sift through new threads is inconvenient. ML's are simply more 
convenient if you have a wonderfully configured MUA compared to the mucky 
web interfaces.

Speaking of web interfaces, a forum is pretty much a mailing list 
archive in design, isn't there some web interface for mailing lists that 
allows you to browse threads as in a forum? Perhaps you could help out 
installing such software so that the community can choose from two 
interfaces: SMTP and HTML.

Again, I'll stick with my MUA (mutt) since it has better controls and UI 
than any forum web interface I've ever seen. I also pipe my messages 
through procmail which has a vast collection of filtering I require.
It is also conveniently started from my shell so I don't have to click 
around or use the mouse to partake in OSG discussions. (I rarely even have 
the mouse connected)
So you see, a web interface would ruin my perfect setup = not good. :)

/Peter

  
 my two cents,
  
 Roland Smeenk
  
 
 
 
 
   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ricko 3D
   Sent: maandag 27 augustus 2007 6:07
   To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
   Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
   
   
 
Nick Prudent wrote:
 
There *is* an OSG discussion forum:
http://www.3drealtimesimulation.com/3dsceneBB/index.php
It's just not very official (and not used much, from what I can 
 see...). 
 
   Great!  I'll bet it would be used much more if it were listed 
 prominently on the wiki like just below the mailing list link or on the 
 getting started page for example. I searched the wiki and found a link to an 
 official FAQ on that site but no links from the wiki to the forum at all.
 

 
Jean-Sébastien wrote:
 
you'll see the arguments for and against. A compromise 
may be reached, but the mailing list is here to stay.
Most OSS projects have at least two mailing lists, some much more.  
 
It's a very effective means of discussing development subjects.
 

 
   Thanks for the quick response. Seems funny to say anything is here to 
 stay related to any constantly evolving technology project, or anything 
 related to the Internet. I was just offering my observations coming at this 
 project fresh. My opinion was simply that the mailing list method seems 
 outdated. I wasn't suggesting it is not effective, just comparing it to the 
 features/benefits of newer community technologies I've used on other projects.
 

 
 
 This e-mail and its contents are subject to the DISCLAIMER at 
 http://www.tno.nl/disclaimer/email.html
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Zachary Hilbun]

I looked at the documentation on the web page and
eventually figured out how to use the Wiki editor. 
When someone asks a question about something that is
inadequately documented, it would be a good idea to
encourage them to improve the documentation.  After
they have been given an answer, they can be given a
link to the Wiki sign in instructions and links to the
right document(s) to improve.  After they have
mastered the subject their question was about they can
edit the right spot in the documentation.

The examples don't appear to be editable so that is a
problem.  Some of them could use some additional
commenting.  The Quick Start Guide is not available on
a web page to be editable.  Only part of the full
Reference Guide is on a web page.  The reference guide
is apparently generated from the source files so I'm
not sure how you would integrate user added
documentation to it.


--- Robert Osfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On 8/27/07, Smeenk, R.J.M. (Roland)
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  There's a huge list of examples all needing
 maintenance already. Why not
  let the tutorials emerge from the community (like
 the NPS tutorial and
  others) and let them be maintained by the
 community.
 
 It would be great to see a tutorial/example set
 thrive without needing
 my input.  Perhaps one could even consider moving
 core osg examples
 into such a repository.
 
 I don't think keeping things up to date would be
 very difficult, once
 they are ported over to 2.0 and use CMake it should
 be pretty straight
 forward for various members of the community to keep
 things in sync.
 
  All it takes is a
  platform (like the Wiki) that is guaranteed to be
 available in the
  future.
 
 We have the existing website and the forge area that
 can host
 tutorials.  I'd suggest keeping the tutorials as
 part of the main
 website though, as this will help people search of
 things all in one
 centralised place.  Roland's work porting across to
 the new wiki is a
 good first step.
 
 I'd suggest it'd be useful for someone or a group of
 individuals step
 forward as coordinators/contributors.
 
 Robert.
 
 
 
 W.r.t svn support, one could either place it as part
 of the osg
 repository or in its own.
 
 Robert.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org

http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 


===
Zachary Hilbun
Software Contractor
Dallas, Tx


   

Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the 
tools to get online.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting 
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

Hi Rick,

The forum vs mailing list issue has been done to death many times.
Some people swear by forums, some detest them, some people swear by
mailing lists, some others detest, others don't care.

Having mailing lists *and* forums just splits the community and
critically those delving out support.  There is absolutely no way on
earth I can afford my time to be stretched out any further, and my
guess others are in a similar boat. For this reason you won't be
finding me or many others on the forums or IRC channels, and without
the driving forces being the OSG being one these channels of support
they won't of little use.

Since splitting damages the communities ability to provide support and
to generally function, then one really has to keep community in one
place, this should either be a mailing list OR a forum OR and this
would be my ideal a system where users can choose to doing either use
mailing list or a forum.   Provision of such as system is not a
trivial matter, and something than members of the community will have
to step up to help provide as I don't have the expertise or the
resources to provide it myself.

Robert.

On 8/27/07, Ricko 3D [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Thanks for the quick response. Seems funny to say anything is here to stay
 related to any constantly evolving technology project, or anything related
 to the Internet. I was just offering my observations coming at this project
 fresh. My opinion was simply that the mailing list method seems outdated. I
 wasn't suggesting it is not effective, just comparing it to the
 features/benefits of newer community technologies I've used on other
 projects.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Philip Taylor]

On the hijacked tutorial subject - forum and/or email list

A forum is an online activity whilst an email list is an offline activity,
which means that I can get on with other things rather constantly watching a
forum window for a critical reply - such as actually figuring out a solution
for myself and learning something in the process.

On the original subject - tutorials.

My experience is that tutorials as far as possible should be part of the
main source code, because they become the test harnesses of the main code -
if they don't work then something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Also it
keeps the tutorials refreshed and working with the evolving interfaces. The
real trick is then to not to go wild on the production of new tutorials if
existing tutorials can be extended to demonstrate new features, otherwise we
could end up with even more of a maintenance headache.

PhilT



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Robert
Osfield
Sent: 27 August 2007 09:59
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials


Hi Rick,

The forum vs mailing list issue has been done to death many times.
Some people swear by forums, some detest them, some people swear by
mailing lists, some others detest, others don't care.

Having mailing lists *and* forums just splits the community and
critically those delving out support.  There is absolutely no way on
earth I can afford my time to be stretched out any further, and my
guess others are in a similar boat. For this reason you won't be
finding me or many others on the forums or IRC channels, and without
the driving forces being the OSG being one these channels of support
they won't of little use.

Since splitting damages the communities ability to provide support and
to generally function, then one really has to keep community in one
place, this should either be a mailing list OR a forum OR and this
would be my ideal a system where users can choose to doing either use
mailing list or a forum.   Provision of such as system is not a
trivial matter, and something than members of the community will have
to step up to help provide as I don't have the expertise or the
resources to provide it myself.

Robert.

On 8/27/07, Ricko 3D [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Thanks for the quick response. Seems funny to say anything is here to stay
 related to any constantly evolving technology project, or anything related
 to the Internet. I was just offering my observations coming at this
project
 fresh. My opinion was simply that the mailing list method seems outdated.
I
 wasn't suggesting it is not effective, just comparing it to the
 features/benefits of newer community technologies I've used on other
 projects.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Smeenk, R.J.M. (Roland)]

 
On the original subject - tutorials.

There's a huge list of examples all needing maintenance already. Why not
let the tutorials emerge from the community (like the NPS tutorial and
others) and let them be maintained by the community. All it takes is a
platform (like the Wiki) that is guaranteed to be available in the
future. It seems to me one tends to keep things centralized and under
control of few and therefore increasing the weight that those few
shoulders need to carry. That's not what I see as a community effort.
Distribute the weight so we can all contribute...

Roland

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf 
 Of Philip Taylor
 Sent: maandag 27 augustus 2007 11:15
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 On the hijacked tutorial subject - forum and/or email list
 
 A forum is an online activity whilst an email list is an 
 offline activity, which means that I can get on with other 
 things rather constantly watching a forum window for a 
 critical reply - such as actually figuring out a solution for 
 myself and learning something in the process.
 
 On the original subject - tutorials.
 
 My experience is that tutorials as far as possible should be 
 part of the main source code, because they become the test 
 harnesses of the main code - if they don't work then 
 something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Also it keeps the 
 tutorials refreshed and working with the evolving interfaces. 
 The real trick is then to not to go wild on the production of 
 new tutorials if existing tutorials can be extended to 
 demonstrate new features, otherwise we could end up with even 
 more of a maintenance headache.
 
 PhilT
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf 
 Of Robert Osfield
 Sent: 27 August 2007 09:59
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 
 Hi Rick,
 
 The forum vs mailing list issue has been done to death many times.
 Some people swear by forums, some detest them, some people 
 swear by mailing lists, some others detest, others don't care.
 
 Having mailing lists *and* forums just splits the community 
 and critically those delving out support.  There is 
 absolutely no way on earth I can afford my time to be 
 stretched out any further, and my guess others are in a 
 similar boat. For this reason you won't be finding me or many 
 others on the forums or IRC channels, and without the driving 
 forces being the OSG being one these channels of support they 
 won't of little use.
 
 Since splitting damages the communities ability to provide 
 support and to generally function, then one really has to 
 keep community in one place, this should either be a mailing 
 list OR a forum OR and this would be my ideal a system where 
 users can choose to doing either use
 mailing list or a forum.   Provision of such as system is not a
 trivial matter, and something than members of the community 
 will have to step up to help provide as I don't have the 
 expertise or the resources to provide it myself.
 
 Robert.
 
 On 8/27/07, Ricko 3D [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Thanks for the quick response. Seems funny to say anything 
 is here to 
  stay related to any constantly evolving technology project, or 
  anything related to the Internet. I was just offering my 
 observations 
  coming at this
 project
  fresh. My opinion was simply that the mailing list method 
 seems outdated.
 I
  wasn't suggesting it is not effective, just comparing it to the 
  features/benefits of newer community technologies I've used 
 on other 
  projects.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
 negraph.org
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
 negraph.org
 

This e-mail and its contents are subject to the DISCLAIMER at 
http://www.tno.nl/disclaimer/email.html
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Gordon Tomlinson]

Sadly I think its not just a mail man issue with  dreamhost its a general
problem

They seem to have a lot of issues over the last 9 months or so and I find
that my sites, web, sql etc
are down a lot, so it might be part of this over degradation of server that
seems to have hit
dreamhost

I have always liked dreamhost the price and service has been right, but as
of late I'm considering
moving on

Best Regards

Gordon

__
Gordon Tomlinson
Email  : gordon.tomlinson @ overwatch.com
YIM/AIM: Gordon3dBrit
MSN IM : Gordon3dBrit @ 3dSceneGraph.com

__
Telephone (Cell): (+1) 571-265-2612 -- Note New Number
Telephone (Work): (+1) 703-437-7651

Self defence is not a function of learning tricks
but is a function of how quickly and intensely one
can arouse one's instinct for survival
- Master Tambo Tetsura



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Robert
Osfield
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 4:50 AM
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials


On 8/27/07, Jean-Sébastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  P.S.
  It seems to me to not have received the original Robert message, It is
  not the first ime I got a reply to a message I' ve never received.
  has it  occured to anyone else?

 Yes, me. No idea why, nor how to fix it, but I've seen it happen about
 3 times in the last week...

Mailman on the new dreamhost server doesn't seem to be as reliable as
it should be. I am no mail, mailman or web admin expert so I can't say
why exact these problems exist.  Is it a dreamhost problem on
delivery?  Is is peoples on mail servers rejecting mail?

Just a point of reference, the last time we moved mailing list servers
there was quite a bit of fallout w.r.t the mail server being
blacklisted so people wouldn't receive mail from it.  The blacklisting
can be a local issue or one centrally managed.

I suspect this is an issue with false positives where spam filters and
blacklisting is used as much  as anything else.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Eric Sokolowsky]

Ricko 3D wrote:
 
 Just an idea (sorry if it was discussed previously - I'm new here)... how
 about an actual discussion forum (like vBulletin) to compliment the wiki. No
 offense intended but I haven't seen a mailing list used for all discussions
 on a technical project since the late 90's (I think the last one I used as a
 developer that was served by Mailman was the introduction of the PNG
 format). As an outsider just learning OSG I have to admit a text only
 mailing list made OSG harder to approach then other similar technologies
 available today. Forums for other similar technology projects I've
 participated in seem to offer less friction (and more of a community feel -
 improving contributions) on technical discussions. Just my two cents.

The problems with posting messages forums is that you lose the attention 
of several OSG developers and contributors, such as Robert Osfield and 
myself. Mailing lists are much more efficient for me because the 
messages come to me, and I don't have to go anywhere, log in, and trawl 
for new messages scattered around in multiple discussion threads.

As others have stated, this has all been discussed before, so that's all 
  that needs to be said.

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Speed]

Robert Osfield wrote:
 On 8/27/07, Jean-Sébastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 P.S.
 It seems to me to not have received the original Robert message, It is
 not the first ime I got a reply to a message I' ve never received.
 has it  occured to anyone else?
 Yes, me. No idea why, nor how to fix it, but I've seen it happen about
 3 times in the last week...
 
 Mailman on the new dreamhost server doesn't seem to be as reliable as
 it should be. I am no mail, mailman or web admin expert so I can't say
 why exact these problems exist.  Is it a dreamhost problem on
 delivery?  Is is peoples on mail servers rejecting mail?
 
 Just a point of reference, the last time we moved mailing list servers
 there was quite a bit of fallout w.r.t the mail server being
 blacklisted so people wouldn't receive mail from it.  The blacklisting
 can be a local issue or one centrally managed.
 
 I suspect this is an issue with false positives where spam filters and
 blacklisting is used as much  as anything else.
 
 Robert.

For what it's worth, I too have missed several e-mails from the list... 
some from you specifically.  I know about them because I see the responses.

I only mention it because a) I have basically no spam filtering at all, 
and b) I receive many other messages (from you specifically) just fine.

Just adding evidence (or removing possible red herrings) for anyone 
trying to debug this issue.

-Paul
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Jean-Sébastien Guay]

Hello Robert,

 I suspect this is an issue with false positives where spam filters and
 blacklisting is used as much  as anything else.

I don't think so, I think it's more likely to be randomly dropped  
mails by the mailing list software because some of the mails I didn't  
get were from you! :-)

I would get responses to a message you sent, but not the actual  
message that was responded to. Seems you should check with your  
hosting service to see if they have anything they can check out in  
logs or whatnot and see if there are reliability issues...

J-S
-- 
__
Jean-Sebastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://whitestar02.webhop.org/


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Jean-Sébastien Guay]

Hello Philip,

 My experience is that tutorials as far as possible should be part of the
 main source code, because they become the test harnesses of the main code

There are already over 80 examples in the OSG source code that serve  
this function. I don't think we should add the tutorials to those. The  
function should be different. Examples exercise OSG and demonstrate  
what can be done with it, and tutorials are there to guide new users  
to how to do specific things.

They *could* be added to the main source distribution, but I don't  
think it's necessary. And keeping them separate would probably lessen  
Robert's workload, and allow people to for example download a  
binary-only OSG distribution while getting the source code for only  
the tutorials.

J-S
-- 
__
Jean-Sebastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://whitestar02.webhop.org/


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Peter Gebauer]

Hello.

 on a technical project since the late 90's (I think the last one I used as a

That's because people are stupid? :)

Why should I have to commit an extra login on a web page and use a message 
reader that is slower, less configurable and less integrated with my 
desktop?
My mail user agent sorts threads and categorizes posts using advanced 
procmail filters and the coloring is exactly like I want it. No web based 
forum can provide that much usability and features.

Just my thoughts on forums.

/Peter
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Jean-Sébastien Guay]

 I vote for 2)
 I think we should provide examples on how to build an external
 application that is OSG-based, the tutorials are probably good candidates.

I agree. The tutorials should be kept separate.

 P.S.
 It seems to me to not have received the original Robert message, It is
 not the first ime I got a reply to a message I' ve never received.
 has it  occured to anyone else?

Yes, me. No idea why, nor how to fix it, but I've seen it happen about  
3 times in the last week...

J-S
-- 
__
Jean-Sebastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://whitestar02.webhop.org/


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Ricko 3D]

 It seems to me to not have received the original Robert message, It is
 not the first ime I got a reply to a message I' ve never received.
 has it  occured to anyone else?

 Yes, me. No idea why, nor how to fix it, but I've seen it happen about  
 3 times in the last week...

Just an idea (sorry if it was discussed previously - I'm new here)... how
about an actual discussion forum (like vBulletin) to compliment the wiki. No
offense intended but I haven't seen a mailing list used for all discussions
on a technical project since the late 90's (I think the last one I used as a
developer that was served by Mailman was the introduction of the PNG
format). As an outsider just learning OSG I have to admit a text only
mailing list made OSG harder to approach then other similar technologies
available today. Forums for other similar technology projects I've
participated in seem to offer less friction (and more of a community feel -
improving contributions) on technical discussions. Just my two cents.



___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Jean-Sébastien Guay]

Hello,

 Just an idea (sorry if it was discussed previously - I'm new here)... how
 about an actual discussion forum (like vBulletin) to compliment the wiki.

Indeed, it has been discussed previously. Search the archives. Last I  
heard of it, some people suggested ways of bridging a forum and the  
mailing list but nothing practical came of it...

As I said, look at the archives on the subject, you'll see the  
arguments for and against. A compromise may be reached, but the  
mailing list is here to stay.

 No offense intended but I haven't seen a mailing list used for all  
 discussions
 on a technical project since the late 90's

Most OSS projects have at least two mailing lists, some much more.  
It's a very effective means of discussing development subjects.

J-S
-- 
__
Jean-Sebastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://whitestar02.webhop.org/


This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Ricko 3D]

 Nick Prudent wrote:

 There *is* an OSG discussion forum:
 http://www.3drealtimesimulation.com/3dsceneBB/index.php
 It's just not very official (and not used much, from what I can see...). 

Great!  I’ll bet it would be used much more if it were listed prominently on
the wiki like just below the mailing list link or on the getting started
page for example. I searched the wiki and found a link to an official FAQ on
that site but no links from the wiki to the forum at all.

 

 Jean-Sébastien wrote:

 you'll see the arguments for and against. A compromise 
 may be reached, but the mailing list is here to stay.
 Most OSS projects have at least two mailing lists, some much more.  

 It's a very effective means of discussing development subjects.

 

Thanks for the quick response. Seems funny to say anything is here to stay
related to any constantly evolving technology project, or anything related
to the Internet. I was just offering my observations coming at this project
fresh. My opinion was simply that the mailing list method seems outdated. I
wasn’t suggesting it is not effective, just comparing it to the
features/benefits of newer community technologies I’ve used on other
projects.

 

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

Hi Roland,

On 8/24/07, Smeenk, R.J.M. (Roland) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 I just copied all NPS tutorials into the Wiki.

Many thanks.  Where abouts on the wiki have you copied it?

 There's a number of things that still need editing:
 -Conversion to OSG2.0
 -Addition of source zip files
 -Addition of screenshots
 -Addition of links to related stuff (Api reference, examples and User
 guides)

 Robert, I read in the Wiki that it is possible to automatically add
 syntax coloring if GNU Enscript or SilverCity (preferred) are installed.
 I would like to see this installed?
 Furthermore CamelCasing in the Trac Wiki has bitten me more than it
 helped me, because I had to disable all Wiki linking on StateSets,
 MatrixTransforms etc. Could this be turned off?

I have to defer to others who know Tracs, and I'm just a newbee users
like yourself.

Perhaps Jose is he's back can comment on what you could possibly be
changed on the server.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Sullivan, Joseph (CDR)]

That's awesome!  Many thanks,
-Joe



From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Smeenk, R.J.M. (Roland)
Sent: Fri 8/24/2007 12:59 PM
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials




I just copied all NPS tutorials into the Wiki.
There's a number of things that still need editing:
-Conversion to OSG2.0
-Addition of source zip files
-Addition of screenshots
-Addition of links to related stuff (Api reference, examples and User
guides)

Robert, I read in the Wiki that it is possible to automatically add
syntax coloring if GNU Enscript or SilverCity (preferred) are installed.
I would like to see this installed?
Furthermore CamelCasing in the Trac Wiki has bitten me more than it
helped me, because I had to disable all Wiki linking on StateSets,
MatrixTransforms etc. Could this be turned off?

Kind regards,

Roland Smeenk



 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf
 Of Sullivan, Joseph (CDR)
 Sent: donderdag 23 augustus 2007 0:39
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

 Hey All,
 Congrats and big thanks to those that have been adding documentation!
 I've been largely away from OSG for a while, but the work
 looks mighty impressive.
 I think Robert's question about different users is the key. 
 The examples are absolutely fantastic and work great for
 some, not so great for others.  Tutorials seem to be a
 helpful bridge.  (The original goal of the NPS tutorial set
 was to get students w/out engineering background comfortable
 enough to dive into the examples.) Soo...
 What does it take to move the tutorials currently on the NPS
 web site over to the osg wiki site?
 Is there anybody that can spare some resources to help the effort?
 Thanks,
 Joe S.

  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:osg-users-
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Osfield
  Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 11:55 AM
  To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
  Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
  On 8/22/07, Jeremy L. Moles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 19:16 +0100, Robert Osfield wrote:
Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a
   
  svn rm  examples
   
?
  
   No, they very much are. :) It's just that those of us that DO use
 the
   examples don't post here saying so...
 
  Its O.K. I'm not serious about to remove them, just frustrating my
  frustration at big chunks of work that is dedicated to helping new
  users being ignored.
 
   As far as example usefulness is concerned, no news is good news.
   Honestly, in contrast to the entire discussion at hand, I _rarely_
 use
   documentation. I always just look at the code. Documentation in a
 formal
   sense makes me want to take a nap...
 
  In other projects I do occasionally look for documentation,
 but rarely
  does it help me more than a succinct code example.  If you are
  experienced programmer than its the code that tells you everything.
 
  It would be interesting to do a profile of different users
 to see what
  types of assistance to get their programs written they find most
  effective.  When I say assistance I mean documentation,
 mailing list
  archives, examples, code comments, code itself, class
 naming, method
  naming.
 
  I do wonder if too many developers these days are expecting
 to put in
  too little real effort for the amount of results they are wanting.
  Programming is hard.  Real-time graphics is a BIG topic.  To master
  them you have lavish lots of time.
 
  When I first started programming as a kid there was just
 practically
  nothing available relative to today, I didn't know any better, I
  enjoyed in a perverse way learning by myself how to code Z80
  assembler.  Yes it took weeks just to get a few coloured sprites
  animating across the screen, but I didn't go ranting at anyone for
  lack of guidance and docs, I just enjoyed figuring it out
 and getting
  the final result.  Fast forward to today and the with 10
 lines of code
  in the OSG you can create and load a terabyte sized 3D world and
  interact with it at a solid 60Hz.  But yet some people seem
 to expect
  more much more.
 
  Robert.
  ___
  osg-users mailing list
  osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
negraph.or
 g
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
negraph.org


This e-mail and its contents are subject to the DISCLAIMER at 
http://www.tno.nl/disclaimer/email.html
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


winmail.dat___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[David Callu]

better to keep examples into the OpenSceneGraph/examples to keep sync with
OSG core isn't it ??


2007/8/25, Robert Osfield [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Where to host the example source...

 1) I see three options - zip files attached to the wiki

 2) A svn repository for tutorial examples

 3) Putting tutorial examples into the OpenSceneGraph/examples as part
 of the core OSG.

 Keeping the tutorials separate from the core OSG will require a
 maintainer for it, any volunteers?  Keeping it separate does have an
 advantage of show how one builds applications outwith the standard OSG
 distribution.

 Putting tutorials into the core OSG has the advantage is that the code
 will be as easily any of the core OSG examples.

 Thoughts?
 Robert.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Luigi Calori]

I vote for 2)
I think we should provide examples on how to build an external 
application that is OSG-based, the tutorials are probably good candidates.
They could also be used with different OSG versions.
I can help to set up the CMake projects.

P.S.
It seems to me to not have received the original Robert message, It is 
not the first ime I got a reply to a message I' ve never received.
has it  occured to anyone else?

Thanks
 Luigi


David Callu wrote:

 better to keep examples into the OpenSceneGraph/examples to keep sync 
 with OSG core isn't it ??


 2007/8/25, Robert Osfield [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

 Where to host the example source...

 1) I see three options - zip files attached to the wiki

 2) A svn repository for tutorial examples

 3) Putting tutorial examples into the OpenSceneGraph/examples as part
 of the core OSG.

 Keeping the tutorials separate from the core OSG will require a
 maintainer for it, any volunteers?  Keeping it separate does have an
 advantage of show how one builds applications outwith the standard OSG
 distribution.

 Putting tutorials into the core OSG has the advantage is that the
 code
 will be as easily any of the core OSG examples.

 Thoughts?
 Robert.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 mailto:osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org




___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
  


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Smeenk, R.J.M. (Roland)]

I just copied all NPS tutorials into the Wiki.
There's a number of things that still need editing:
-Conversion to OSG2.0
-Addition of source zip files
-Addition of screenshots
-Addition of links to related stuff (Api reference, examples and User
guides)

Robert, I read in the Wiki that it is possible to automatically add
syntax coloring if GNU Enscript or SilverCity (preferred) are installed.
I would like to see this installed?
Furthermore CamelCasing in the Trac Wiki has bitten me more than it
helped me, because I had to disable all Wiki linking on StateSets,
MatrixTransforms etc. Could this be turned off?

Kind regards,

Roland Smeenk



 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf 
 Of Sullivan, Joseph (CDR)
 Sent: donderdag 23 augustus 2007 0:39
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 Hey All,
 Congrats and big thanks to those that have been adding documentation!
 I've been largely away from OSG for a while, but the work 
 looks mighty impressive.
 I think Robert's question about different users is the key.  
 The examples are absolutely fantastic and work great for 
 some, not so great for others.  Tutorials seem to be a 
 helpful bridge.  (The original goal of the NPS tutorial set 
 was to get students w/out engineering background comfortable 
 enough to dive into the examples.) Soo...
 What does it take to move the tutorials currently on the NPS 
 web site over to the osg wiki site?
 Is there anybody that can spare some resources to help the effort?
 Thanks,
 Joe S.
 
  -Original Message-
  From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:osg-users- 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Osfield
  Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 11:55 AM
  To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
  Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
  
  On 8/22/07, Jeremy L. Moles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 19:16 +0100, Robert Osfield wrote:
Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a
   
  svn rm  examples
   
?
  
   No, they very much are. :) It's just that those of us that DO use
 the
   examples don't post here saying so...
  
  Its O.K. I'm not serious about to remove them, just frustrating my 
  frustration at big chunks of work that is dedicated to helping new 
  users being ignored.
  
   As far as example usefulness is concerned, no news is good news.
   Honestly, in contrast to the entire discussion at hand, I _rarely_
 use
   documentation. I always just look at the code. Documentation in a
 formal
   sense makes me want to take a nap...
  
  In other projects I do occasionally look for documentation, 
 but rarely 
  does it help me more than a succinct code example.  If you are 
  experienced programmer than its the code that tells you everything.
  
  It would be interesting to do a profile of different users 
 to see what 
  types of assistance to get their programs written they find most 
  effective.  When I say assistance I mean documentation, 
 mailing list 
  archives, examples, code comments, code itself, class 
 naming, method 
  naming.
  
  I do wonder if too many developers these days are expecting 
 to put in 
  too little real effort for the amount of results they are wanting.
  Programming is hard.  Real-time graphics is a BIG topic.  To master 
  them you have lavish lots of time.
  
  When I first started programming as a kid there was just 
 practically 
  nothing available relative to today, I didn't know any better, I 
  enjoyed in a perverse way learning by myself how to code Z80 
  assembler.  Yes it took weeks just to get a few coloured sprites 
  animating across the screen, but I didn't go ranting at anyone for 
  lack of guidance and docs, I just enjoyed figuring it out 
 and getting 
  the final result.  Fast forward to today and the with 10 
 lines of code 
  in the OSG you can create and load a terabyte sized 3D world and 
  interact with it at a solid 60Hz.  But yet some people seem 
 to expect 
  more much more.
  
  Robert.
  ___
  osg-users mailing list
  osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
negraph.or
 g
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
negraph.org
 

This e-mail and its contents are subject to the DISCLAIMER at 
http://www.tno.nl/disclaimer/email.html
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

On 8/23/07, Luigi Calori [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 A related argument is the support of  CMake build of projects that rely
 on OSG (there is at least VPB now, but probably many others and
 probably  more to come)

FYI, I've added CMake support (OSG style) to Present3D and VirtualPlanetBuilder:

  http://present3d.osgforge.org/
  http://virtualplanetbuilder.osgforge.org/

I intend to have CMake support for osgProducer as well.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Rizzen]

The examples are useful, though to me they not part of the documentation
collection, thus did not come to mind during this discussion.

Yet I found it easier first to run through Joe's tutorials before
visiting the OSG examples. The tutorials builds up a usage knowledge
foundation of commonly used classes, making it easier to follow the code
of the examples. It made more sense doing it this way than jumping
directly into the code. Having some background information on how OSG
functions definitely makes it easier to work through the examples.

Rizzen

Robert Osfield wrote:
 Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a

   svn rm  examples

 ?

 On 8/22/07, Rizzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   
 Here is my noob point of view on this topic.

 Firstly Joe helped me a great deal just by providing us those fantastic
 tutorials (focusing on one feature at a time) he did for his students at
 the Navy Academy. Even though I am no guru in OpenGL, I know enough to
 create the needed results I needed, I managed to create a OSG scene
 quickly and how to manipulate the scene. For a long time Joe's work was
 really the only resource in learning OSG. Oh, forget about the generated
 API documentation, nothing much there to be of much help to a noob.

 The next good resource to hit the scene is Paul's QSG. This free book,
 really compliments Joe's work so far. Allowing a noob to have a speedier
 learning curve than without these two resources.

 As Paul has mentioned already, he is planning a series of OSG books to
 covering various aspects of OSG. From the quality of the QSG to the
 noobs, the series will surely fill in the plenty needed detail that is
 missing from the QSG.

 Robert himself has been very helpful in answering question put forward
 by the community. Often a search through the mail list yields many
 answers provided by many who have become experienced at using OSG.

 So I salute all those who have contributed to the current tutorial
 collection and first 2 books on OSG.

 Rizzen
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

   

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Penn Taylor]

Robert Osfield wrote:
 
 In other projects I do occasionally look for documentation, but rarely
 does it help me more than a succinct code example.  If you are
 experienced programmer than its the code that tells you everything.
 

I'd say the code *can* tell you everything, but there are many cases in 
which reading the code is just about the least time-efficient method 
of figuring it out. Let's say I want to rotate a matrix. Which method 
does what I need? It's easy enough to find that osg::Matrix::  rotate, 
setRotate, and makeRotate exist, but what does each one do? Where do I 
look? In the MatrixImplementation header? In the associated cpp? How 
about the doxygen generated comments? Or maybe I hunt through 50 
examples, none of which has anything explicitly to do with how to rotate 
a matrix. Okay, that's four places to look, none of them are terribly 
enlightening, and I just spent how long -- probably an hour by the time 
I backtrack all the necessary code to understand what's going on in an 
example -- trying to figure out which method to use to rotate a matrix. 
Maybe by this point I have it and maybe I don't.

Contrast this with the existence of some sort of documentation that 
breaks the API down into functional units. I look in doc for the maths 
unit, then matrix operations, and there it is: matrix rotations. A few 
short examples and a solid explanation of the three ways in osg to 
accomplish this. Time spent is maybe five minutes.

Or how about clear doxygen comments in the code? Take a look at 
http://www.wxwidgets.org/manuals/stable/wx_wxstring.html#wxstringremove 
for an example of clear comments generated from a header. You don't even 
need a code example when comments are this clear. Notice also how the 
documentation clearly indicates that the function is deprecated, and 
even tells you what to replace it with. (Notice also that they maintain 
backwards compatibility through at least one major release number.) When 
I'm doing wxWidgets work, the doxygen docs are just about the only 
reference I need. I rarely need to look at sample code, even though it 
does exist. OSG is exactly the reverse, and I notice that it often 
eventually results in a frustrated post to the users list asking how to 
do something relatively simple. Perhaps the osg community can take a 
leaf from wxWidgets' notebook?

I'm not bashing Robert or anyone else for the fact that such 
documentation doesn't exist. I understand how much time it takes, 
especially when the API code changes as frequently as osg's. But an 
answer of look at the code just doesn't cut it in many situations.

 I do wonder if too many developers these days are expecting to put in
 too little real effort for the amount of results they are wanting.
 Programming is hard.  Real-time graphics is a BIG topic.  To master
 them you have lavish lots of time.
 

One has to lavish a lot of time, yes, but that time should be lavished 
learning the maths and concepts of RT graphics, along with some amount 
of time learning an API. That time shouldn't be spent digging through 
API code trying to understand how to use basic operations that could be 
easily documented.

Again, I'm not bashing anyone. But in my opinion most folks are not 
being unreasonable in the complaint that the documentation is lacking. 
And it's mighty hard to generate that documentation when you're still 
trying to figure it out yourself.

Well, that pretty much wraps up my argument for why people complaining 
about documentation are not automatically lazy, stupid, or bad programmers.

-Penn Taylor
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Gordon Tomlinson]

boils down to an age old saying, you get what you pay for when it comes to
documentation with open source projects

SGI produced some excellent Performer manuals that helped some folks they
also spent alot of man hours and money producing these ( BTW these are still
very use for people new to Scenegraphs and 3d graphics becuase the concepts
are the same, the only real new things is programmable GPU's , I still
recommend these to newbies)

Problem to ay is too many folks expect everthing for free and expect
software to write itsself or someone to do it for them,  the only way to
learn how to
do something is to do it, and no book is ever going to give every  one all
the information they think the should have or what they want to achieve.

As has been said if some people feel theres a short coming in th FREE
documentation,examples, samples or code etc then please provide better
examples, better docs etc... or if you expect someone else to do if for you
then exect to pay for it...


Best Regards

Gordon

__
Gordon Tomlinson
Email  : gordon.tomlinson @ overwatch.com
YIM/AIM: Gordon3dBrit
MSN IM : Gordon3dBrit @ 3dSceneGraph.com

__
Telephone (Cell): (+1) 571-265-2612 -- Note New Number
Telephone (Work): (+1) 703-437-7651

Self defence is not a function of learning tricks
but is a function of how quickly and intensely one
can arouse one's instinct for survival
- Master Tambo Tetsura



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Robert
Penn Taylor
Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:02 PM
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials




Robert Osfield wrote:
 
 In other projects I do occasionally look for documentation, but rarely
 does it help me more than a succinct code example.  If you are
 experienced programmer than its the code that tells you everything.


I'd say the code *can* tell you everything, but there are many cases in
which reading the code is just about the least time-efficient method
of figuring it out. Let's say I want to rotate a matrix. Which method
does what I need? It's easy enough to find that osg::Matrix::  rotate,
setRotate, and makeRotate exist, but what does each one do? Where do I
look? In the MatrixImplementation header? In the associated cpp? How
about the doxygen generated comments? Or maybe I hunt through 50
examples, none of which has anything explicitly to do with how to rotate
a matrix. Okay, that's four places to look, none of them are terribly
enlightening, and I just spent how long -- probably an hour by the time
I backtrack all the necessary code to understand what's going on in an
example -- trying to figure out which method to use to rotate a matrix.
Maybe by this point I have it and maybe I don't.

Contrast this with the existence of some sort of documentation that
breaks the API down into functional units. I look in doc for the maths
unit, then matrix operations, and there it is: matrix rotations. A few
short examples and a solid explanation of the three ways in osg to
accomplish this. Time spent is maybe five minutes.

Or how about clear doxygen comments in the code? Take a look at
http://www.wxwidgets.org/manuals/stable/wx_wxstring.html#wxstringremove
for an example of clear comments generated from a header. You don't even
need a code example when comments are this clear. Notice also how the
documentation clearly indicates that the function is deprecated, and
even tells you what to replace it with. (Notice also that they maintain
backwards compatibility through at least one major release number.) When
I'm doing wxWidgets work, the doxygen docs are just about the only
reference I need. I rarely need to look at sample code, even though it
does exist. OSG is exactly the reverse, and I notice that it often
eventually results in a frustrated post to the users list asking how to
do something relatively simple. Perhaps the osg community can take a
leaf from wxWidgets' notebook?

I'm not bashing Robert or anyone else for the fact that such
documentation doesn't exist. I understand how much time it takes,
especially when the API code changes as frequently as osg's. But an
answer of look at the code just doesn't cut it in many situations.

 I do wonder if too many developers these days are expecting to put in
 too little real effort for the amount of results they are wanting.
 Programming is hard.  Real-time graphics is a BIG topic.  To master
 them you have lavish lots of time.


One has to lavish a lot of time, yes, but that time should be lavished
learning the maths and concepts of RT graphics, along with some amount
of time learning an API. That time shouldn't be spent digging through
API code trying to understand how to use basic operations that could be
easily documented.

Again, I'm not bashing anyone. But in my opinion most folks are not
being unreasonable in the complaint

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Zachary Hilbun]

Let me say upfront that I realize the people writing
OSG are getting nothing out of it for themselves. 
Also, there is always going to some investment in
learning a new package.  I think what needs to be
addressed is the large amount of time people spend to
learn a small amount of OSG.

To me it makes sense to have better documentation,
because would you rather have one guy spend an extra
hour writing documentation or have 100 guys spend and
extra hour each trying to figure out how something
works?  When I write code I generally write the
documentation for each class, function and parameter
first.  That way it’s clear in my mind how everything
is supposed to work and I can avoid making the
mistakes in the code.  I think the writing and
debugging of the code goes quicker this way than not
doing the documentation, and in the end I have a nice
document I can give to users.

To my way of thinking the documentation should be such
that a programmer can look at it and ask me few if any
questions.  Without that level of documentation the
users are going to nickel-and-dime you with questions
that should have been addressed by the documentation. 
You ultimately have the choice of answering the
question one-by-one or putting out a document and
being done with it.  A function or class isn’t really
ready for release until you have documentation that
says what it does and how to use it.  You could have
the best new feature in the world, but if people don’t
know what it does or how to use it what have you
accomplished?  I personally would never ask someone to
look through my code to figure out how to call it. 
It’s asking them to do a tremendous amount of work in
order to gather a small amount of information.

The examples are important because it clears up
exactly how things should be done.  Comments in the
examples would make them much easier to use.  I’m not
really sure what some of the examples do because there
is no comment header explaining what is being
demonstrated.  Comments within the code would make it
much easier understand what is going on.

I don’t think a tutorial is needed for concepts that
are common to scene graphs in general.  However, some
of the OSG concepts are unique to OSG and need to be
better explained.

--- Gordon Tomlinson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 boils down to an age old saying, you get what you
 pay for when it comes to
 documentation with open source projects
 
 SGI produced some excellent Performer manuals that
 helped some folks they
 also spent alot of man hours and money producing
 these ( BTW these are still
 very use for people new to Scenegraphs and 3d
 graphics becuase the concepts
 are the same, the only real new things is
 programmable GPU's , I still
 recommend these to newbies)
 
 Problem to ay is too many folks expect everthing for
 free and expect
 software to write itsself or someone to do it for
 them,  the only way to
 learn how to
 do something is to do it, and no book is ever going
 to give every  one all
 the information they think the should have or what
 they want to achieve.
 
 As has been said if some people feel theres a short
 coming in th FREE
 documentation,examples, samples or code etc then
 please provide better
 examples, better docs etc... or if you expect
 someone else to do if for you
 then exect to pay for it...
 
 
 Best Regards
 
 Gordon
 

__
 Gordon Tomlinson
 Email  : gordon.tomlinson @ overwatch.com
 YIM/AIM: Gordon3dBrit
 MSN IM : Gordon3dBrit @ 3dSceneGraph.com
 

__
 Telephone (Cell): (+1) 571-265-2612 -- Note New
 Number
 Telephone (Work): (+1) 703-437-7651
 
 Self defence is not a function of learning tricks
 but is a function of how quickly and intensely one
 can arouse one's instinct for survival
 - Master Tambo Tetsura
 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Behalf Of Robert
 Penn Taylor
 Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:02 PM
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 
 
 
 Robert Osfield wrote:
  
  In other projects I do occasionally look for
 documentation, but rarely
  does it help me more than a succinct code example.
  If you are
  experienced programmer than its the code that
 tells you everything.
 
 
 I'd say the code *can* tell you everything, but
 there are many cases in
 which reading the code is just about the least
 time-efficient method
 of figuring it out. Let's say I want to rotate a
 matrix. Which method
 does what I need? It's easy enough to find that
 osg::Matrix::  rotate,
 setRotate, and makeRotate exist, but what does each
 one do? Where do I
 look? In the MatrixImplementation header? In the
 associated cpp? How
 about the doxygen generated comments? Or maybe I
 hunt through 50
 examples, none of which has anything explicitly to
 do with how to rotate
 a matrix. Okay, that's four places to look, none of
 them are terribly

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

On 8/23/07, Robert Penn Taylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Again, I'm not bashing anyone. But in my opinion most folks are not
 being unreasonable in the complaint that the documentation is lacking.
 And it's mighty hard to generate that documentation when you're still
 trying to figure it out yourself.

 Well, that pretty much wraps up my argument for why people complaining
 about documentation are not automatically lazy, stupid, or bad programmers.

What is reasonable to expect for something you haven't payed for?

If you have bought something then its reasonable to expect it to
function as advertised.  If for instance you've paid for the Quick
Start Guide and there are book has came through the post as soggy mess
you can complain and get your money back from the publisher.

If you have been given a free gift, then your right to complain is
rather diminished.Rather it equates to about how much you paid for
it, and how much you were promised for this payment.

I wouldn't disagree with desire to have more and better documentation,
we can all desire this.  It's another thing all together to make
demands upon others that have already given so much.

With a community driven project that gives so much for free, if you
wish to additional stuff on top they you have to be prepared to pay
with your own time, skills and good will.

One thing you can't expect form the community is for it to owe you
anything, you aren't owned training for free, support for free, let
alone any code.  If you don't know anything about C++, scene graphs,
OpenGL, real-time graphics then its unreasonable to expect others to
fill in the gaps in your skills base.

If you want to learn to be a doctor, well you go to medical college,
you *pay* for the tuition.  You want to learn about how to mend a car,
you go buy a instruction manual for a local shop and enroll in a car
mechanics course.

What we have here is it seems, is that we've not only given a car away
free, and the right to freely duplicate it, and some basic
documentation, again for free, and a community that is willing to help
out where and when time permits.  All this is pretty awesome, yet
because of all this stuff is given away for free and with goodwill
that we somehow owe more.  We have to teach you how to do your job
too.

If you expectation are unresonable then you will be disappointed.
Considering you pay nothing for the product or support for it what you
truely should expect is nothing from it or its community, *nothing* is
the only reasonably thing to expect.

If you expect any more than nothing you have nothing more to expect or
demand that disappointment - this isn't the fault of the project or
its community, the fault lies with your own unreasonable expectations.

Now if you are contributor, then there are grounds for some
expectation, expectation that you contribution will be given due
consideration and respect for the effort that you expended on it.

Companies that pay for bespoke development, training or support, they
too have grounds for expectation.

Thankfully the vast majority of straight users are polite and
respectful and appreciate what help they can get.   Occasionally we do
get souls who's expectations are well beyond what is reasonable to
expect from a community, this tiny minority sour things for everybody.

Expect nothing and you will be amazed what you can get for nothing.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

On 8/23/07, Zachary Hilbun [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 To me it makes sense to have better documentation,
 because would you rather have one guy spend an extra
 hour writing documentation or have 100 guys spend and
 extra hour each trying to figure out how something
 works?

If its so easy why not hire someone to spend a hour?  Or thousand?

If those you are expecting to write documentation are already working
12 hours days, many many of them without pay, should one expect an
extra hour every day or just any extra hour less paid work per day...

If the community want documentation then they need either volunteer
themselves OR volunteer to pay some else to do it.

So please for all those who are moaning about lack of documentation,
its time to stop gassing and write some tutorials or talk to you boss
to put your on a training course, or to commission Paul Martz and Bob
Kuehne or others to write more documentation.

Moaning just tells us how little you appreciate all this free stuff
you've already got and how unreasonable some people are.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Martz]

Just some stray thoughts about writing open source code, books, and
tutorials...

Writing code for free has zero financial benefit, of course, and the
financial benefit of writing books has (so far) been negligible as well. But
producing a useful, viable software project, and documentation for it, has
tremendous self-promotion benefits for the authors, who get lots of clients
and business. For example, Bob and I (and Robert too, last time I checked)
are currently swamped/overwhelmed with work. Then the question looms its
ugly head: Write more free code and documentation? Or write code for clients
to bring in revenue?

I recall Robert expressing the desire to have documentation development pay
for itself; that's not really practical, I don't think it ever will in terms
of $$$ per hour spent writing. So, the temptation is to quit writing and
focus on more direct-revenue-generating tasks. So when people suggest that
Robert or Bob and I develop some new whiz-bang feature or documentation, you
might understand why our response is you're part of the community, do it
yourself. We're kind of busy with paying projects at the moment.

(Tangent: Bob and I are trying to keep a balance and find creative ways to
leverage other work for documentation development. For example, we hope the
OSG Programming Guide will fall out of our training course curriculum. And
much of our work will lead us to improving the comments in the OSG source,
which will produce better Reference Manuals.)

I think this applies not just to core OSG sw dev and doc dev, but also to
other forms of docs: tutorials and examples. Take Joe Sullivan, for example.
Based on the reputation he's earned from OSG tutorial development, I imagine
he could quit his day job and start picking up clients for OSG dev work in
fairly short order. There doesn't seem to be any shortage of such work as
far as I can tell.

I say this to hopefully inspire people to step up and contribute, earn a
name for themselves, and then use that to the advantage of their career
(while simultaneously improving OSG or its documentation). If
self-employment is a goal, this is one way to get there.

Paul Martz
Skew Matrix Software LLC
http://www.skew-matrix.com
303 859 9466

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Marcus Fritzen]

I also just want to say thank you to Paul, Robert and all the others. 
The QSG is a good point to start and for everything which goes further 
you have to read, search or ask the community! I was respectivly I am 
also quite new to OSG, but every day I get a little bit more further ;)

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert
 Osfield
 Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:55 AM
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

 One thing we can be sure of is that they will *never* be enough
 documentation for everybody.  This isn't an OSG specific issue, it isn't a
 closed source vs open source issue, it isn't even an IT specific issue, it
 applies to everything in life.

 As Winston Churchil said (this is from memory so It might be little
 mis-phrased):

 One can please all of the people some of time, or some of the people all of
 the time, but you can never please all the people all the time.

 --

 I occasionally come across emails on osg-users from users that appear to me
 to be almost asking for others to write their program for them, to teach
 them every little detail of what they need to know.  You write code and
 publishing it for free and with an  open license, you provide free support
 and spend you time helping people out, yet this still isn't enough for some,
 the mere act of giving a great deal seems to in somehow mean that you owe
 others even more.

 So... I feel for Paul Martz, he's put a big effort into to getting the Quick
 Start Guide, climbed a peak, taken a short rest, but now its a case of well
 actually that peak you climbed was just a foothill, you need to climb this
 great mountain beyond, and oh BTW can you do it for free too.

 We are a community, so we don't walk alone, one must carry ones own weight
 though, otherwise you can drag others back.  We can all contribute in
 different ways.  Directly by helping write the books and tutorials.  Or by
 *purchasing* the books rather than just downloading the free pdf.

 Robert.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

   

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Gordon Tomlinson]

Also try being on Robert or Paul's end

{START SOAP BOX RANT}

Over the years( eek getting on for 20 ) were I have been active on GL,
Performer list, Vega, Vega Prime, OGL and OSG list among many providing
including providing FAQ's a vis-sim.com and else were etc

Regularly  I get demands for help not request buts demands and which can get
actually quite abusive at time  because I'm not willing to spend hours
writing applications, samples and examples or why I won't create this flight
file for someone, it amazes how people want you do do stuff for free so that
they can make money or a living of your time.   

I'm sure Robert and other get their fair share of these things as well

Aghhh, never mind the replies when you tell them that yes I can help
on these time comsuing request, heres my rates .. If it was not so
annoying it might even be funny

{END SOAP BOX RANT}


__
Gordon Tomlinson 

Email   : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
YIM/AIM : gordon3dBrit
MSN IM  : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website : www.vis-sim.com www.gordontomlinson.com 

__
Self defence is not a function of learning tricks 
but is a function of how quickly and intensely one 
can arouse one's instinct for survival 
-Master Tambo Tetsura 


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert
Osfield
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:55 AM
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

One thing we can be sure of is that they will *never* be enough
documentation for everybody.  This isn't an OSG specific issue, it isn't a
closed source vs open source issue, it isn't even an IT specific issue, it
applies to everything in life.

As Winston Churchil said (this is from memory so It might be little
mis-phrased):

One can please all of the people some of time, or some of the people all of
the time, but you can never please all the people all the time.

--

I occasionally come across emails on osg-users from users that appear to me
to be almost asking for others to write their program for them, to teach
them every little detail of what they need to know.  You write code and
publishing it for free and with an  open license, you provide free support
and spend you time helping people out, yet this still isn't enough for some,
the mere act of giving a great deal seems to in somehow mean that you owe
others even more.

So... I feel for Paul Martz, he's put a big effort into to getting the Quick
Start Guide, climbed a peak, taken a short rest, but now its a case of well
actually that peak you climbed was just a foothill, you need to climb this
great mountain beyond, and oh BTW can you do it for free too.

We are a community, so we don't walk alone, one must carry ones own weight
though, otherwise you can drag others back.  We can all contribute in
different ways.  Directly by helping write the books and tutorials.  Or by
*purchasing* the books rather than just downloading the free pdf.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

On 8/22/07, Nick Prudent [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Here's my proposal for putting together tutorials without breaking the bank:
 YouTube
 Screen Casts. I recently learned a few PHP programming tricks from this
 serie:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5egpgAVxQImode=relatedsearch=

 On the Mac, there are a few free solutions for doing this. There's no need
 for a camera, since you are just capturing the screen. Then, you can post it
 on YouTube, which saves you the bandwidth
 distribution cost. Just an idea.

Be prepared to volunteer your own time as well others :-)
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Jeremy L. Moles]

On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 06:14 -0400, Gordon Tomlinson wrote:
 Very well said Robert
 
 And Great Job Paul Martz and  everyone who helps and contributes
 
 But can some one please press F5 for me, its just too much effort to have to
 compile things my self ;) 

Press F5!? Real men run make.

:)

 __
 Gordon Tomlinson 
 
 Email   : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 YIM/AIM : gordon3dBrit
 MSN IM  : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Website : www.vis-sim.com www.gordontomlinson.com 
 
 __
 Self defence is not a function of learning tricks 
 but is a function of how quickly and intensely one 
 can arouse one's instinct for survival 
 -Master Tambo Tetsura 
 
 
 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert
 Osfield
 Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 5:55 AM
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 One thing we can be sure of is that they will *never* be enough
 documentation for everybody.  This isn't an OSG specific issue, it isn't a
 closed source vs open source issue, it isn't even an IT specific issue, it
 applies to everything in life.
 
 As Winston Churchil said (this is from memory so It might be little
 mis-phrased):
 
 One can please all of the people some of time, or some of the people all of
 the time, but you can never please all the people all the time.
 
 --
 
 I occasionally come across emails on osg-users from users that appear to me
 to be almost asking for others to write their program for them, to teach
 them every little detail of what they need to know.  You write code and
 publishing it for free and with an  open license, you provide free support
 and spend you time helping people out, yet this still isn't enough for some,
 the mere act of giving a great deal seems to in somehow mean that you owe
 others even more.
 
 So... I feel for Paul Martz, he's put a big effort into to getting the Quick
 Start Guide, climbed a peak, taken a short rest, but now its a case of well
 actually that peak you climbed was just a foothill, you need to climb this
 great mountain beyond, and oh BTW can you do it for free too.
 
 We are a community, so we don't walk alone, one must carry ones own weight
 though, otherwise you can drag others back.  We can all contribute in
 different ways.  Directly by helping write the books and tutorials.  Or by
 *purchasing* the books rather than just downloading the free pdf.
 
 Robert.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Rizzen]

Here is my noob point of view on this topic.

Firstly Joe helped me a great deal just by providing us those fantastic
tutorials (focusing on one feature at a time) he did for his students at
the Navy Academy. Even though I am no guru in OpenGL, I know enough to
create the needed results I needed, I managed to create a OSG scene
quickly and how to manipulate the scene. For a long time Joe's work was
really the only resource in learning OSG. Oh, forget about the generated
API documentation, nothing much there to be of much help to a noob.

The next good resource to hit the scene is Paul's QSG. This free book,
really compliments Joe's work so far. Allowing a noob to have a speedier
learning curve than without these two resources.

As Paul has mentioned already, he is planning a series of OSG books to
covering various aspects of OSG. From the quality of the QSG to the
noobs, the series will surely fill in the plenty needed detail that is
missing from the QSG.

Robert himself has been very helpful in answering question put forward
by the community. Often a search through the mail list yields many
answers provided by many who have become experienced at using OSG.

So I salute all those who have contributed to the current tutorial
collection and first 2 books on OSG.

Rizzen
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[mkg]

The best kind of code documentation, for me at least, has always been 
annotated online demo code, such as NeHe's OpenGL walkthroughs and 
Irrlicht3D's online tutorials:
http://nehe.gamedev.net/
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/tutorials.html

The main problem with OSG's documentation isn't that there's not enough 
of it, but that it's poorly presented on the website. You have to click 
twice before finding the tutorials page, and then you're presented with 
an undifferentiated forest of links that happen to include Joseph 
Sullivan's excellent set of easy-to-browse tutorials, along with other 
people's random mystery tarballs.

Contrast this with irrlicht3d's presentation (see link above), where 
there's one official tutorial page, linked directly off the main page, 
with thumbnails for each tutorial.

What would be best, in my opinion, is to get rid of that splash page 
(!), and on the main page have the sidebar display Downloads, 
Tutorials, API, and Other references explicitly, at the top. I 
would get rid of the first 6 items in the current sidebar and just move 
them to the About page, because most people don't care (sorry) about 
things like Introduction and History. The tutorials should all be 
webpages rather than tarballs, and be indexed with thumbnails on the 
tutorials page, in rough order of difficulty (Joseph Sullivan has it 
right). Oh, and why is there a splash page?? (Okay, ending rant.)

*Wheeze, wheeze,*
-- Matt
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a

  svn rm  examples

?

On 8/22/07, Rizzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Here is my noob point of view on this topic.

 Firstly Joe helped me a great deal just by providing us those fantastic
 tutorials (focusing on one feature at a time) he did for his students at
 the Navy Academy. Even though I am no guru in OpenGL, I know enough to
 create the needed results I needed, I managed to create a OSG scene
 quickly and how to manipulate the scene. For a long time Joe's work was
 really the only resource in learning OSG. Oh, forget about the generated
 API documentation, nothing much there to be of much help to a noob.

 The next good resource to hit the scene is Paul's QSG. This free book,
 really compliments Joe's work so far. Allowing a noob to have a speedier
 learning curve than without these two resources.

 As Paul has mentioned already, he is planning a series of OSG books to
 covering various aspects of OSG. From the quality of the QSG to the
 noobs, the series will surely fill in the plenty needed detail that is
 missing from the QSG.

 Robert himself has been very helpful in answering question put forward
 by the community. Often a search through the mail list yields many
 answers provided by many who have become experienced at using OSG.

 So I salute all those who have contributed to the current tutorial
 collection and first 2 books on OSG.

 Rizzen
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Jeremy L. Moles]

On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 19:16 +0100, Robert Osfield wrote:
 Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a
 
   svn rm  examples
 
 ?

No, they very much are. :) It's just that those of us that DO use the
examples don't post here saying so...

As far as example usefulness is concerned, no news is good news.
Honestly, in contrast to the entire discussion at hand, I _rarely_ use
documentation. I always just look at the code. Documentation in a formal
sense makes me want to take a nap...

 On 8/22/07, Rizzen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Here is my noob point of view on this topic.
 
  Firstly Joe helped me a great deal just by providing us those fantastic
  tutorials (focusing on one feature at a time) he did for his students at
  the Navy Academy. Even though I am no guru in OpenGL, I know enough to
  create the needed results I needed, I managed to create a OSG scene
  quickly and how to manipulate the scene. For a long time Joe's work was
  really the only resource in learning OSG. Oh, forget about the generated
  API documentation, nothing much there to be of much help to a noob.
 
  The next good resource to hit the scene is Paul's QSG. This free book,
  really compliments Joe's work so far. Allowing a noob to have a speedier
  learning curve than without these two resources.
 
  As Paul has mentioned already, he is planning a series of OSG books to
  covering various aspects of OSG. From the quality of the QSG to the
  noobs, the series will surely fill in the plenty needed detail that is
  missing from the QSG.
 
  Robert himself has been very helpful in answering question put forward
  by the community. Often a search through the mail list yields many
  answers provided by many who have become experienced at using OSG.
 
  So I salute all those who have contributed to the current tutorial
  collection and first 2 books on OSG.
 
  Rizzen
  ___
  osg-users mailing list
  osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
  http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Alberto Luaces]

El Miércoles 22 Agosto 2007, Robert Osfield escribió:
 Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a

   svn rm  examples

 ?

Are you kidding? For me, the examples are the only source of information in 
order to use the most parts of OSG. I think I could never get the knowledge 
to use osgShadow from the doxygen reference and without having the examples. 
The same applies for all the integration examples for QT, wxWidgets, etc.

Please keep them in the repository, they are also good tests for finding bugs 
in new releases, to give hints to new users, etc

Alberto
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

On 8/22/07, Jeremy L. Moles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 19:16 +0100, Robert Osfield wrote:
  Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a
 
svn rm  examples
 
  ?

 No, they very much are. :) It's just that those of us that DO use the
 examples don't post here saying so...

Its O.K. I'm not serious about to remove them, just frustrating my
frustration at big chunks of work that is dedicated to helping new
users being ignored.

 As far as example usefulness is concerned, no news is good news.
 Honestly, in contrast to the entire discussion at hand, I _rarely_ use
 documentation. I always just look at the code. Documentation in a formal
 sense makes me want to take a nap...

In other projects I do occasionally look for documentation, but rarely
does it help me more than a succinct code example.  If you are
experienced programmer than its the code that tells you everything.

It would be interesting to do a profile of different users to see what
types of assistance to get their programs written they find most
effective.  When I say assistance I mean documentation, mailing list
archives, examples, code comments, code itself, class naming, method
naming.

I do wonder if too many developers these days are expecting to put in
too little real effort for the amount of results they are wanting.
Programming is hard.  Real-time graphics is a BIG topic.  To master
them you have lavish lots of time.

When I first started programming as a kid there was just practically
nothing available relative to today, I didn't know any better, I
enjoyed in a perverse way learning by myself how to code Z80
assembler.  Yes it took weeks just to get a few coloured sprites
animating across the screen, but I didn't go ranting at anyone for
lack of guidance and docs, I just enjoyed figuring it out and getting
the final result.  Fast forward to today and the with 10 lines of code
in the OSG you can create and load a terabyte sized 3D world and
interact with it at a solid 60Hz.  But yet some people seem to expect
more much more.

Robert.
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Martz]

 As far as example usefulness is concerned, no news is good news.
 Honestly, in contrast to the entire discussion at hand, I 
 _rarely_ use documentation. I always just look at the code. 
 Documentation in a formal sense makes me want to take a nap...

Ironically, I agree with you, but don't tell anyone, it would ruin my
reputation as a writer. :-)

When I'm trying to learn some new aspect of OSG, I look for an existing
example first, then I usually browse through related header files used by
the example, then I dig into the source code if I need more info. Sometimes
I resort to breakpoints in OSG while running an example to find out what's
really going on.

Printed documentation, I rarely read it cover to cover. I usually look at
the TOC or index and jump to the section I'm interested in. And I've
actually used the Quick Start Guide this way: If I'm trying to remember how
to do something that I _know_ I covered in the QSG, I look it up in the TOC
or index and read what I wrote.
   -Paul

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Gordon Tomlinson]

I would also add see Opengl Distilled  ;)

Best Regards

Gordon

__
Gordon Tomlinson
Email  : gordon.tomlinson @ overwatch.com
YIM/AIM: Gordon3dBrit
MSN IM : Gordon3dBrit @ 3dSceneGraph.com

__
Telephone (Cell): (+1) 571-265-2612 -- Note New Number
Telephone (Work): (+1) 703-437-7651

Self defence is not a function of learning tricks
but is a function of how quickly and intensely one
can arouse one's instinct for survival
- Master Tambo Tetsura



-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Paul
Martz
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 6:05 PM
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials


 As the author, you
 clearly see the relationship with OpenGL. For a newbie, this
 relationship is not immediatly obvious.

Good point, thanks for the reminder. I always try to be concise, sometimes
to a fault. I could add a few extra sentences here and there saying this is
identical to OpenGL, see the OpenGL red book for more info and I'll try to
remember to do that.

 Here's my proposal for putting together tutorials without
 breaking the bank:  YouTube Screen Casts.

Eric Wing has put a few very informative videos on the OSG wiki regarding
installing/using OSG on a Mac:
http://www.openscenegraph.org/index.php?page=Tutorials.MacOSXTips

Your PHP cookies video shows this same technique can also be used for
programming topics.
   -Paul

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Frank Bergmann]

 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:osg-users-
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Martz
 
 Eric Wing has put a few very informative videos on the OSG wiki
 regarding
 installing/using OSG on a Mac:
 http://www.openscenegraph.org/index.php?page=Tutorials.MacOSXTips
 

Alas, all the videos on that page seem to point to broken links. Any chance
of making them work again?

Thanks
Frank


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Sullivan, Joseph (CDR)]

Hey All,
Congrats and big thanks to those that have been adding documentation!
I've been largely away from OSG for a while, but the work looks mighty
impressive.
I think Robert's question about different users is the key.  The
examples are absolutely fantastic and work great for some, not so great
for others.  Tutorials seem to be a helpful bridge.  (The original goal
of the NPS tutorial set was to get students w/out engineering background
comfortable enough to dive into the examples.) Soo...
What does it take to move the tutorials currently on the NPS web site
over to the osg wiki site?
Is there anybody that can spare some resources to help the effort?
Thanks,
Joe S.

 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:osg-users-
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Robert Osfield
 Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2007 11:55 AM
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 On 8/22/07, Jeremy L. Moles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  On Wed, 2007-08-22 at 19:16 +0100, Robert Osfield wrote:
   Are the examples of no use to any one??? Shall I just do a
  
 svn rm  examples
  
   ?
 
  No, they very much are. :) It's just that those of us that DO use
the
  examples don't post here saying so...
 
 Its O.K. I'm not serious about to remove them, just frustrating my
 frustration at big chunks of work that is dedicated to helping new
 users being ignored.
 
  As far as example usefulness is concerned, no news is good news.
  Honestly, in contrast to the entire discussion at hand, I _rarely_
use
  documentation. I always just look at the code. Documentation in a
formal
  sense makes me want to take a nap...
 
 In other projects I do occasionally look for documentation, but rarely
 does it help me more than a succinct code example.  If you are
 experienced programmer than its the code that tells you everything.
 
 It would be interesting to do a profile of different users to see what
 types of assistance to get their programs written they find most
 effective.  When I say assistance I mean documentation, mailing list
 archives, examples, code comments, code itself, class naming, method
 naming.
 
 I do wonder if too many developers these days are expecting to put in
 too little real effort for the amount of results they are wanting.
 Programming is hard.  Real-time graphics is a BIG topic.  To master
 them you have lavish lots of time.
 
 When I first started programming as a kid there was just practically
 nothing available relative to today, I didn't know any better, I
 enjoyed in a perverse way learning by myself how to code Z80
 assembler.  Yes it took weeks just to get a few coloured sprites
 animating across the screen, but I didn't go ranting at anyone for
 lack of guidance and docs, I just enjoyed figuring it out and getting
 the final result.  Fast forward to today and the with 10 lines of code
 in the OSG you can create and load a terabyte sized 3D world and
 interact with it at a solid 60Hz.  But yet some people seem to expect
 more much more.
 
 Robert.
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org

http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.or
g
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

[osg-users] Tutorials

[Renan Mendes]

Hello, everyone.

It is my very first time using OSG, and also, I'm not really wholly
familiarised with the scene graph concept (never worked for instance with
Java3D). I found the reference guide with the listing of all the classes and
methods indeed very useful, but all the same, they are not very thorough on
what each methods does exactly. Most of them don't even have any
documentation whatsoever. For me, it's a little bit difficult just to look
at the examples and figure out what's happening. Can anyone tell or send me
something that might be useful? Thanks in advance.

Renan M Z Mendes
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Robert Osfield]

Have you read the Quick Start Guide?

On 8/21/07, Renan Mendes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hello, everyone.

 It is my very first time using OSG, and also, I'm not really wholly
 familiarised with the scene graph concept (never worked for instance with
 Java3D). I found the reference guide with the listing of all the classes and
 methods indeed very useful, but all the same, they are not very thorough on
 what each methods does exactly. Most of them don't even have any
 documentation whatsoever. For me, it's a little bit difficult just to look
 at the examples and figure out what's happening. Can anyone tell or send me
 something that might be useful? Thanks in advance.

 Renan M Z Mendes

 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Renan Mendes]

Yes, I have. And you can hardly say that's a tutorial for someone entirely
new to OSG. I'm right at the bottom, you know. Never dealed with Scene
Graphs in my whole life. Thanks for trying to help, anyway.

Renan M Z Mendes
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Martz]

 

Yes, I have. And you can hardly say that's a tutorial for someone entirely
new to OSG. I'm right at the bottom, you know. Never dealed with Scene
Graphs in my whole life. Thanks for trying to help, anyway. 

My intent with the Quick Start Guide was to design it for people completely
new to scene graphs and OSG. See section 1.5 for example, Introduction to
scene graphs. The book contains very basic information about building
Geometry nodes, setting state, memory management, etc. The examples are all
trivial in nature. Are you looking for even more basic information? And if
so, what, exactly, are you looking for?
 
Paul Martz
Skew Matrix Software LLC
http://www.skew-matrix.com http://www.skew-matrix.com/ 
303 859 9466
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Renan Mendes]

Hello, Paul.

Yes, I have read that part you mentioned, and it indeed gives the idea of a
scene graph, no trouble there. My complaint, and mind you, that is not only
about your book, is that I couldn't find explanations, not only on how to
render simple objects, but the whole logical process behind it. And that's
not only about knowing the theory of a scene graph. By reading a book on
OSG, my objective is to be able to understand as thorough as possible the
syntax, which I believe is more important than, for instance, memory
management,
which you deal with in your book even before you teach how to create
geometry nodes.

Please, I didn't mean you any harm. Forgive me if I was a bit rude in my
previous message.

Renan M Z Mendes
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Martz]

Thanks for the compliments, glad the QSG is helpful.

I'm pretty thick-skinned. I didn't really take Renan's post as offensive. I
would, however, like to extract some useful criticism so that I can make
improvements if necessary. Specific change requests are appreciated. For
example, I had a specific request to flesh out the transformation info
further, and I'd like to do that in a future edition.

If Renan really is looking for Tutorials as the subject implies, Joe
Sullivan has some excellent ones here:
http://www.nps.navy.mil/cs/sullivan/osgtutorials/

I understand the comment that it'd be nice to create some geometry before
having to learn memory management. I can't really figure out a way to do
that without a) a lot of hand waving, or b) showing code that leaks memory.
So I'm open to suggestions here.

I intend to produce other OSG documentation in the future with Bob Kuehne,
such as an OSG Programming Guide that will be more comprehensive than the
Quick Start Guide. Maybe that will help.
   -Paul


 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf 
 Of Nick Prudent
 Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 3:21 PM
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 
 I'm a newbie too and I disagree. I'm also starting from 
 ground-zero and I find it very useful and well-written.
 
 The Quick Start Guide assumes that you already know the following:
 * OpenGL
 * C++
 * STL
 Without this fundation, it's going to take longer.
 
 We all start from a different place, so writing for beginners 
 is always tricky ;). Learning a new API is verry frustrating 
 sometime but you have to stick with it.
 
 Nice job Paul!
 
 - Nick -
 
 From: Renan Mendes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:28:39 -0300
 
 Yes, I have. And you can hardly say that's a tutorial for someone 
 entirely new to OSG. I'm right at the bottom, you know. Never dealed 
 with Scene Graphs in my whole life. Thanks for trying to 
 help, anyway.
 
 Renan M Z Mendes
 
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensc
enegraph.o
 rg
 
 _
 Windows Live Hotmail. Even hotter than before. Get a better look now. 
 www.newhotmail.ca?icid=WLHMENCA148
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-opensce
negraph.org

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Zachary Hilbun]

The lack of documentation is very typical of Open
Source software.  I've looked at other Open Source 3D
packages and they all have similar problems.  Another
problem they all have is limited support for dotNet.

The creators of the different software I have looked
at are typically more interested in adding features
than they are in documentating the features they
already have.  If you are trying to learn it, it's a
real problem because if a feature is not documented it
might as well not exist.  If you are working in a
professional environment then the cost of a commercial
package and learning it could be less than the cost of
your time to learn a free but poorly documented
package.

With respect to OSG specifically I would say the Quick
Start guide is good as far as it goes.  There is much
it does not cover however.  The Reference Manual
doesn't cover everything either, and much of what it
does cover is simply a single sentence that is not
necessarly meaningful.  There are several example apps
but they are not commented.  I don't even know what
some of them are supposed to do after having looked at
them.  Usually I can guess what is going on inside of
them, but because of the lack of comments sometimes I
don't really know why something is being done.

I've written a lot of OpenGL, read the OpenInventor
book, learned other 3D packages, and taken a graduate
course in Computer Graphics.  I still find myself
having to guess at what a particular class or function
is supposed to do or how a particular function is
supposed to be called.  I can imagine how difficult it
would be for a novice to learn OSG.


--- Nick Prudent [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I'm a newbie too and I disagree. I'm also starting
 from ground-zero and I 
 find it very useful and well-written.
 
 The Quick Start Guide assumes that you already know
 the following:
 * OpenGL
 * C++
 * STL
 Without this fundation, it's going to take longer.
 
 We all start from a different place, so writing for
 beginners is always 
 tricky ;). Learning a new API is verry frustrating
 sometime but you have to 
 stick with it.
 
 Nice job Paul!
 
 - Nick -
 
 From: Renan Mendes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:28:39 -0300
 
 Yes, I have. And you can hardly say that's a
 tutorial for someone entirely
 new to OSG. I'm right at the bottom, you know.
 Never dealed with Scene
 Graphs in my whole life. Thanks for trying to help,
 anyway.
 
 Renan M Z Mendes
 
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org

http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 

_
 Windows Live Hotmail. Even hotter than before. Get a
 better look now. 
 www.newhotmail.ca?icid=WLHMENCA148
 
 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org

http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
 


===
Zachary Hilbun
Software Contractor
Dallas, Tx


   

Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the 
tools to get online.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting 
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Nick Prudent]

Paul,

One way to do quick tutorials on the go without spending a lot are YouTube 
Screen Casts. I recently learned a few PHP programming tricks from this 
serie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5egpgAVxQImode=relatedsearch=

On the Mac, there are a few free solutions for doing this. I'm not sure for 
PC or Linux. There's no need for a camera, since you are just capturing the 
screen. Then, you can post it on YouTube, which saves you the bandwidth 
distribution cost.

I'm not good enough yet to do those for OSG, but that could be cool ;)

Just an idea.

- Nick -

_
Show Your Messenger Buddies How You Really Feel 
http://www.freemessengeremoticons.ca/?icid=EMENCA122

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Nick Prudent]

Zachary,

I too have been programming OpenGL for while (10 years) and I find learning 
OSG to be quite humbling: very few of my OpenGL skills are immediatly 
transferable. OSG is very much like what the MFC ins to Win32, however, with 
MFC, there's always a way to use Win32 calls directly anywhere in the code. 
OSG does not allow this, which is more elegant, but makes it harder to 
transition from direct OpenGL.


I understand that the documentation is at it's infancy, so let's give it 
time and try to contribute in making it better.


- Nick -


From: Zachary Hilbun [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:13:29 -0700 (PDT)

The lack of documentation is very typical of Open
Source software.  I've looked at other Open Source 3D
packages and they all have similar problems.  Another
problem they all have is limited support for dotNet.

The creators of the different software I have looked
at are typically more interested in adding features
than they are in documentating the features they
already have.  If you are trying to learn it, it's a
real problem because if a feature is not documented it
might as well not exist.  If you are working in a
professional environment then the cost of a commercial
package and learning it could be less than the cost of
your time to learn a free but poorly documented
package.

With respect to OSG specifically I would say the Quick
Start guide is good as far as it goes.  There is much
it does not cover however.  The Reference Manual
doesn't cover everything either, and much of what it
does cover is simply a single sentence that is not
necessarly meaningful.  There are several example apps
but they are not commented.  I don't even know what
some of them are supposed to do after having looked at
them.  Usually I can guess what is going on inside of
them, but because of the lack of comments sometimes I
don't really know why something is being done.

I've written a lot of OpenGL, read the OpenInventor
book, learned other 3D packages, and taken a graduate
course in Computer Graphics.  I still find myself
having to guess at what a particular class or function
is supposed to do or how a particular function is
supposed to be called.  I can imagine how difficult it
would be for a novice to learn OSG.


--- Nick Prudent [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I'm a newbie too and I disagree. I'm also starting
 from ground-zero and I
 find it very useful and well-written.

 The Quick Start Guide assumes that you already know
 the following:
 * OpenGL
 * C++
 * STL
 Without this fundation, it's going to take longer.

 We all start from a different place, so writing for
 beginners is always
 tricky ;). Learning a new API is verry frustrating
 sometime but you have to
 stick with it.

 Nice job Paul!

 - Nick -

 From: Renan Mendes [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Reply-To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 To: osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
 Subject: Re: [osg-users] Tutorials
 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:28:39 -0300
 
 Yes, I have. And you can hardly say that's a
 tutorial for someone entirely
 new to OSG. I'm right at the bottom, you know.
 Never dealed with Scene
 Graphs in my whole life. Thanks for trying to help,
 anyway.
 
 Renan M Z Mendes


 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org

http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


_
 Windows Live Hotmail. Even hotter than before. Get a
 better look now.
 www.newhotmail.ca?icid=WLHMENCA148

 ___
 osg-users mailing list
 osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org

http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org



===
Zachary Hilbun
Software Contractor
Dallas, Tx




Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all 
the tools to get online.

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting
___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org


_
Windows Live Hotmail is the next generation of MSN Hotmail.  It’s fast, 
simple, and safer than ever and best of all – it’s still free. Try it today! 
www.newhotmail.ca?icid=WLHMENCA146


___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org

Re: [osg-users] Tutorials

[Paul Martz]

 Another problem they all 
 have is limited support for dotNet.

I always thought it was .NET has limited support for standard C/C++... :-)

 With respect to OSG specifically I would say the Quick Start 
 guide is good as far as it goes.  There is much it does not 
 cover however.  The Reference Manual doesn't cover everything 
 either, and much of what it does cover is simply a single 
 sentence that is not necessarly meaningful.

I agree, those are true statements. But things could be worse. It could be
March 2007, when neither of these books existed. There are plans to improve
the existing reference Manuals, and also plans for other books, as I
mentioned at the OSG BOF a couple weeks ago:
http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg/attachment/wiki/Support/SIGGRAPH2
007/Presentation.ppt

   -Paul

___
osg-users mailing list
osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org
http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org