HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pockets@netcom.com (Sean C. Cunningham)
Subject: Re: Macintosh PlayMation experience
Organization: Metrolight Studios, L.A.
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 23:52:46 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.180111.28040@qiclab.scn.rain.com> baer@qiclab.scn.rain.com (Ken Baer) writes:

>....  I'll leave you with
>the following quote.
>
>"The creators of Playmation chose to use raytracing.  Obviously, the price
>paid for this decision is speed.  Still, Playmation represents one of the
>fastest PC-based raytracers I have seen."  - Computer Graphics World, Jan '93
>
>
>
>-- 
> \_       -Ken Baer.  Programmer/Animator, Hash Enterprises
><[_]   Usenet: baer@qiclab.UUCP / AppleLink: KENBAER / Office: (206)573-9427
> =# \,  "We're not hitchhiking anymore, we're RIDING!" - Ren Hoak.   

I wouldn't be so quick to accept this guy as an authority, Ken.  Congrats
on getting Playmation covered in CGW.  But I'm sorry it was such a shallow
and little informative article.
 
I would have expected more from CGW.  This guys review as about on a par with
the dolts that reviewed Journeyman for the Amiga mags.  Little proved that
he had actually used the program and nothing proved that he could produce
anything with the program.
 
I tried to get in touch with the guy for this review after he put out
a call on the Playmation BBS.  The mail I did get from him sounded like he
was trying to get Playmation users to write the article for him.  After
this I got nothing.
 
I could have given him some real production experience with the package
and some nice stills to boot...oh well.


-- 
                       DISCLAIMER: I'm my own person

    // "ocketsPay,                    /         Real World: Sean C. Cunningham
  \X/   ethay onderWay oyBay"       (M-          MetroLand: sean@iris13
                                      \           Internet: pockets@netcom.com

                           Metrolight Studios, L.A.

Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: nwickham@nyx.cs.du.edu (Neal Wickham)
Subject: Re: Matrox Studio
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Reply-To: nwickham@nyx.UUCP (Neal Wickham)
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 22:47:05 GMT

In article <ksPPXB3w165w@gilligan.tsoft.net> bbs.mirage@gilligan.tsoft.net (Jerry Lee) writes:

>school -- we also have one by the way), I would say that the quality of 
>the matrox far surpasses that of the toaster.. besides, anything with a 
>"sheep wipe" ... well. you gotta wonder huh?  <-  The sheep thing is on 
>the toaster by the way. =)  I'll try to get you the phone number and 
>address to the company as soon as possible.. (by Monday for sure).  All I 
>know right now is that they are located in Canada and it costs around 
>$20K; the key word is around since the actual system that we have at 
>school cost more around $25-30K.

Yeah... you don't want a Toaster, there's going to be a second generation
ToasterII for the new A4000 which will probably sell for the same $2,500
so don't go buying a crummy old Toaster.  :)  Geese, how long has the Toaster
been around? ...3 years???  That's old in computer years!  :)



                                       NCW
From: lcoffin@usenet.umr.edu (Larry Coffin)
Subject: Single frame film cameras?
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 01:26:17 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri -- Rolla


	I'm interested in buying a single frame film camera (ie. take a
picture, advance the film, take the next picture, etc.) and was wondering
what kinds of cameras are available.  I'm looking for inexpensive cameras,
really just to play around with.

	---Larry Coffin
		lcoffin@clciris.chem.umr.edu
From: dburnett@emunix.emich.edu (Don Burnett)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: Amiga 3d Rendering Software
Date: 24 Jan 93 16:29:19 GMT
Organization: Eastern Michigan University

In article <1993Jan21.004647.29221@cs.UAlberta.CA> ken@cs.UAlberta.CA (Huisman Kenneth M) writes:
>
>I would like to get some opinions on what the best ( non-toaster )
>3d rendering software is out there.  I'm thinking of getting an A4000
>soon, so AGA compatibility is an issue.
>
  Any Amiga program that supports writing out an IFF24 is inherently a
  program compatible with AGA. If you get MAKEANIM 39.1 and REND24 (the
  latest version), will take IFF24 rendered frames and convert them to
  an anim in HAM8 (256,000 color mode) at any resolution the Amiga
  supports (up to 1280x400 or 640x960 more with overscan, also 1280x400
  is a 15Khz video compatible mode not requiring scan conversion).
  Rend24 and Makeanim are available on the WUARCHIVE and on the AMINET
  MIRROR.  You can also create 256 color anims at any resolution with these
  programs as well..


  As for directly making a HAM8 anim or a 256color anim. Nothing except
  VistaPro 3.0 directly supports this yet (as I am aware of). There is
  an AnimLab program with Scala MM200.


>I watched "Computer Chronicles" this weekend and they had an amiga
>rendering package called Alladin 4d.  Has anyone had any experience with
>this package?  Is it any good?  The user interface looked quick, which was
>nice.
  
  Alladin 4D is a great program. I recommend it for DCTV users. I have
  not heard that it really does raytracing, but it does texture mapping
  and has a decent object modeler.

>
>The four ( non-toaster ) packages I am aware of are:
>Real 3d
>Alladin 4d
>Imagine
>Calagari
>
  I have to reccommend Caligari for ease of use..


>Which ones support AGA???
>Which has the best user interface?  Is Calagari still really expensive?
>are there lots of texture libraries for each package?
>I've also seen other add-on packages for Imagine ( something for morphing? ).
>
>I am afraid of Imagine a bit because I had the unfortunate experience of
>using Turbo Silver ( which had horrible documentation, and a horrible manual ).
>
>I will probably use it just to play around and make animations, although
>I may dump a few to video through a GVP genlock my friend has, and possibly
>do a few animations for some of his videos.
>
>Anyways, any knowledge regarding the relative merits of each package would
>be appreciated, thanks.
>
>Ken
>
>ken@cs.ualberta.ca
>


-- 
******************************************************
dburnett@emunix.emich.edu
EMU Mathematics Lab Consultant
Enabling Solutions
PO BOX 318, Ypsilanti, MI  48198
*****************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation,alt.cad,comp.graphics.visualization,sci.engr.mech
From: chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)
Subject: Re: Need CATIA translators
Keywords: catia alias wavefront translator
Organization: FCIA Univ. of Chicago
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 04:24:28 GMT

>> 	I'm looking, somewhat desperately, for a CATIA to ALIAS, 
>> 	WAVEFRONT, DXF, IGES, or just about anything else translator. 
>> 	The basis for this need is that as part of a large scale 
>> 	visualization attempt, I would like to bring a CATIA generated model 
>> 	into either ALIAS or WAVEFRONT for rendering and fly-through 
>> 	animation.  The model itself is much to large and complicated to 
>> 	consider generation from scratch in WAVEFRONT or ALIAS.  I am
>> 	aware of several, outrageously priced, commercial translators,
>> 	but at $10,000 each these are not really options we can 
>> 	afford to consider.  So if anyone has any information on
>> 	reasonably priced or public domain CATIA translators I would
>> 	love to hear the information.  Even some idea as to the
>> 	CATIA EXPORT FILE format would be helpful since the makers
>> 	of CATIA are conspiratorially tight-lipped with any sort of
>> 	file format information.

   Sorry, but I don't have anything to offer but my own experience
converting CATIA files to TDI. We had to send a 9-track tape to France
in order to do a translation, as the only translator available had to
run on a mainframe and they had no plans to port it over to a
workstation. Sorry.

                                  Chris Williams
                                     chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: cs70361e@brando.uwasa.fi (Tommppa(#2) Rintala)
Subject: CCC -programs anywhere?
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 11:56:59 GMT


I have heard about CCC image/animation compression method, which
I hear to be COOL method. Does anyone know something about it??

I would be deligted for any information and all references about it.
Answers on reply...it's easier.

tommppa#2
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tommi Rintala	Student of Computer Science in University of Vaasa
e-mail: cs70361e@brando.uwasa.fi  |  cs70361e@chyde.uwasa.fi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation,comp.graphics
From: toddc@synopsys.com (Todd Collart)
Subject: Running FLC files in UNIX
Keywords: FLC files
Organization: Synopsys, Inc.
Distribution: comp.graphics.animation
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 02:54:03 GMT

I have been using the xflick program for running some FLI format
animations prepared by 3-D Studio on a PC.  I am happy to finally
get this file format to play in my Sparc environment!

Here's my question:  Is there a program that runs FLC format files
on the Sparc?  To my knowledge, FLI formatted files are limited in
resolution to 320 x 200 (a limitation set by AutoDesk).  I would like
to achieve FLC animations that run at a much greater resolution (say
1024 x 768).

Any helpful information would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Todd Collart
Synopsys Inc.
toddc@synopsys.com

Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
From: lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
Subject: Re: Amiga Power (Was RE: Babylon 5)
Organization: City University, London
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 14:26:55 GMT

In article <1993Jan18.232247.7341@gw.wmich.edu> 32coulter@gw.wmich.edu writes:
>You might argue that if *one* Amiga
>dies you still have others to rely on, hence an advantage.  My experience 
>suggests otherwise.  Why?  What if the server dies?  What about the increased
>probability (and thus cost) of machine failure as the # of machines increases?

If you are aiming for success, you may wish to take on some hired
help or partners and they will need their own workstation. A network
of workstation does give you that flexiblity in the long term, and
in the short term you are gearing yourself up for it.

IMHO half a dozen Amiga 4000's would ge a good choice.

--
  ________  Lionel Tun, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk  ________
 / /_  __/\       Computer Vision Group      /\ \__  _\
/___/_/_/\/ City University, London EC1V 0HB \ \___\_\_\
\___\_\_\/        071-477 8000 ext 3889       \/___/_/_/
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Stereo Video Inputs
From: djlewis@ualr.edu
Date: 25 Jan 93 15:38:56 GMT
Organization: University of Arkansas at Little Rock

In article <dfegan.727982748@node_2204c>, dfegan@lescsse.jsc.nasa.gov (Doug Egan) writes:
> In <C182Gp.Fnq@ie.utoronto.ca> garym@ie.utoronto.ca (Gary Murphy) writes:
> 
>>I'm having a hard time believing there are no available platforms to
>>read stereo video inputs into a computer.  What I want seems so
>>simple: I need to read in two channels of colour stereo video, add
>>some relatively simple graphics, and output stereo NTSC outputs, and I
>>need bit-access to the video images for ranging and calibration
>>operations.
> 
> 
>      I currently have the Super VideoWindows card and Developers Kit
>    from New Media Graphics. :)  I am running Windows 3.1... Seems like it
>    will do all that I want it to... It has three video inputs, sterio audio,
>    24-bit color. You will need to passthru to an additional VGA board,
>    thus taking two slots. There is a "sister" VGA board available that
>    will <piggyback> and take only one slot. 
> 
>      You must buy an additional Developers Kit, if you want to do ANY
>    kind of coding... and the End User Kit to do ANYTHING at all! :(
>    There are lots of Third Party applications that support it...
>    The manuals are very well put together, as well.
> 
>      But I am VERY pleased, so far, with the product.
> 
>      The cost of these products are not cheap, but also not that
>    expensive, if you compare other video products.
> 
>         New Media Graphics
>         780 Boston Road
>         Billercia, MA  01821-5925
>         (508) 663-0666
>         1-800-288-2207
> 
> 
> Happy Imaging!
> 
> 
> --
>  Doug Egan                                  "Old enough to know what's right-
>  Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co.       Young enough not to choose it.
>  Houston, TX                                 Wise enough to win the world-
>  ***** InterNet:  egan@blkbox.com  *****     Fool enough to loose it." -Rush
Does the New Media Graphics card truly capture 24-bit and does it have 
onboard memory for 1/30 or 1/60 sec capture? I assume it displays whatever
the video card will display ei; 8,15,16,24bit color?
Don Lewis
<djlewis@ualr.edu>
<djlewis@spider.ualr.edu>

Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: taudas@ais.org (Tony Audas)
Subject: Re: POVRAY made easy
Organization: UMCC
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 03:35:26 GMT

pv3d is on ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de:pub/dkbtrace/...
now mirrored on wuarchive.wustl.edu:graphics/graphics/mirrors/ftp.info...


Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: totake@ho13.eng.ua.edu ()
Subject: Format Converter
Originator: totake@ho13.eng.ua.edu
Organization: The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 16:34:56 GMT

Hi, everyone,
I was wondering whether there is a graphics format converter from Targe to
GIF available for UNIX (AIX) / X-Windows.

Tom

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Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: chisholm@.cmsbio.nwu.edu (Rex L. Chisholm)
Subject: Outputs of IMG files on Sun
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 13:43:40 GMT

We have some IMG files generated by a Fuji BetaScanner put onto a Sun
SPARC2.  Can anyone suggest the best way to get high quality printed
or film output?  The best way is a HG printer, but that's $30 K +.  What about
moving to PC or MAC and using some graphics program to print?  What about
videoprinters?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Respond by email if you
can, although I do read this group regularly.

Rex Chisholm
Northwestern Univ. Medical School
r-chisholm@nwu.edu

Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: boylan@pi.eai.iastate.edu (Terran Boylan)
Subject: POLYGON DECIMATION of big geometries
Organization: Engineering Animation, Inc.
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 22:56:45 GMT

We are currently working on writing routines to take big geometry
files and make them smaller geometry files in an intelligent way.
Sound fun?  You bet!

The most prevalent examples would come from marching cubes data, GIS
data, or Cyberware data.  This is not necessarily our case, but
we _do_ generate a lot of big geometries (>50,000 polygons).

I have the papers from SIGGRAPH '92, but they don't really provide
the level of implementation details that I need.  (Call me a SIGbaby,
but it still seems like there are some SIGGRAPH papers that are 
written to help people solve problems and some that are written to
publicize results! %^( )

Is there any software (PD or otherwise) that is available to do this
polygon decimation process?  I talked to somebody from Cyberware a while
back and they said that they had a program to do this but that it was only
available with their systems.  That may have changed by now, though.  We're
probably going to end up writing code to do the decimation process somehow,
but if we write it it'll end up being specially tailored to our data.

It seems to me like there are a couple of approaches to the problem:

  -- polygon removal
     -- shrink all pts on the poly to a single pt
  -- vertex removal
     -- resulting vertices are a strict subset of original vts
     -- resulting vertices are a combination of original vts plus
        new vertices based on the originals

If anybody has done this before I'd be interested in what you ended up
using for the "vertex/polygon" kill criteria.  Obviously its made up of
some of the following (plus some stuff I haven't thought of):

  -- whether a vt is an interior/exterior vt
  -- how many adjacent vts exist within a vt's "kill radius"
  -- difference between a poly's normal and adjacent poly normals

I realize that the problem is somewhat different based on the following:

  -- whether original geometry topology is "nice" (like a uniform grid)
  -- whether polys with >3 sides are allowed
  -- whether concave polys are allowed

The best possible case would be for somebody to mail me the C code for a
user-friendly GUI program written in GL, but I'm not holding my breath.  I
promise that this is _not_ for a homework assignment and I am _not_ asking
anybody to do my job for me. :^)

Any information or ponters would be greatly appreciated.

---
Terran J. Boylan, Sr. Artist/Programmer | "It's better to have loved
Engineering Animation, Inc.,  Ames, IA  | and lost than just to have
(515) 296-9908 / (515) 296-7934 (> 5PM) | lost." -- Dorky Dog
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: pierre@cs.UAlberta.CA (Pierre Honeyman)
Subject: Re: PoV question: Is there a way to render shadows but not objects?
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:39:02 GMT

kiki@csa.bu.edu (Keith Baccki) writes:

>In article <1993Jan16.160403.21036@exucom.com> cyberman@exucom.com (Stephen R. Phillips) writes:
>>
>>
>>John David Regehr (jregehr@topper.ksu.ksu.edu) wrote:
>>
>>: I am working on raytracing groups of plants, and I would like to make
>>: images of just the shadows cast by the plants - sort of the
>opposite of

>>You could make each sphere black.
>	
>	This isn't what he meant. Actually it's an interesting
>proposition, here's what I thought of:

>	Yes, you can do what you want by changing the heart
>of the raytracer. Basically what you want is to cast rays into the
 
....or you could just look at the shadows.

[...lots of shit deleted...]

Pierre
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: Meessen@marvax.IN2P3.fr (Meessen Christophe)
Subject: Re: Fixed point sqrt anyone?
Followup-To: comp.os.os2.programmer,comp.graphics,comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer,comp.lang.c
Organization: Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 14:02:48 GMT

In article <VJ.93Jan19115116@dlsi.dl.ac.uk>, vj@gserv1.dl.ac.uk (Dave
Hines) wrote:
> 
> > Well? Does anyone know of a quick and dirty way to get a reasonably accurate
> > square root of a fixed point integer number?
> 
> Hmmm - I have a long integer square root routine. 

Dave Hines proposed a sqrt function receiving an unsigned long (X) and
returning
an unsigned long. The remainder, an unsigned long, is accessible as
'result2'.
The algorithm uses 4 unsigned long variables. 
Thus it's a long -> long function.


I suggest two algorithms using the same variables. The first one will
compute a sqrt of a long, returning a fixed point value. The second will
compute the sqrt of a fixed point value, returning a fixed point value.
Thus it's a long -> fixed or fixed -> fixed function.

We will suppose a fixed is equivalent to a long, and longs are 32 bits
wide.

/*
 * fixed sqrtL2F( long X );
 *
 * Long to fixed point square roots. 
 * RETURNS the fixed point square root of X (long).
 * REQUIRES X is positive.
 *
 * Christophe MEESSEN, 1993.
 */

fixed sqrtL2F( long X ) {

  unsigned long t, q, b, r;

  r = X;
  b = 0x40000000;
  q = 0;

  while( b > 0 ) {
    t = q + b;
    if( r >= t ) {
      r = r - t;
      q = t + b;
    }
    r = r * 2;     /* shift left  1 bit */
    b = b / 2;     /* shift right 1 bit */
  }
  if( r >= q )
    q = q + 1;

  return( q );
}


/*
 * fixed sqrtF2F( fixed X );
 *
 * Fixed to fixed point square roots. 
 * RETURNS the fixed point square root of X (fixed).
 * REQUIRES X is positive.
 *
 * Christophe MEESSEN, 1993.
 */

fixed sqrtF2F ( fixed X ) {

  unsigned long t, q, b, r;

  r = X;
  b = 0x40000000;
  q = 0;

  while( b >= 256 ) {
    t = q + b;
    if( r >= t ) {
      r = r - t;
      q = t + b;
    }
    r = r * 2;     /* shift left  1 bit */
    b = b / 2;     /* shift right 1 bit */
  }
  q = q / 256;     /* shift right 8 bits */

  return( q );
}

for memory I just rewrote the long to long sqrt function.

/*
 * long sqrtL2L( long X );
 *
 * Long to long point square roots. 
 * RETURNS the integer square root of X (long).
 * REMAINDER is in the local variable r of type long on return.  
 * REQUIRES X is positive.
 *
 * Christophe MEESSEN, 1993.
 */

long sqrtL2L( long X ) {

  unsigned long t, q, b, r;

  r = X;
  b = 0x40000000;
  q = 0;

  while( b >= 256 ) {
    t = q + b;
    q = q / 2;     /* shift right 1 bit */
    if( r >= t ) {
      r = r - t;
      q = q + b;
    }
    b = b / 4;     /* shift right 2 bits */
  }

  return( q );
}

This functions have been tested. But I'll be pleased to receive any
comments.
Please respond through mail: Meessen@marvax.in2p3.fr
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: mavuduru@peca.cs.umn.edu (Rama Mavuduru)
Subject: Re: simple CAD package using PHIGS (request for)
Keywords: PHIGS CAD
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:30:03 GMT

In <alanf.727658778@bruce.cs.monash.edu.au> alanf@cs.monash.edu.au (Alan Grant Finlay) writes:

>In order to teach some 3d graphics principles we would like to have students
>modify a very simple CAD package written using PHIGS(+).                     

>                                  I wondered if anyone knows of an existing
>public domain, freeware or GNU package that would be suitable?            

>Alternatively perhaps someone knows of a book with an example of this kind?


	I have used the following book to learn about PHIGS:

	3D Programming in X, PHIGS Programming Manual
	By Tom Gaskins
	O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

	It has examples on most aspects of PHIGS. 
	The examples are available by ftp.

	ftp export.lcs.mit.edu
	login: anonymous
	passwd: guest
	cd nutshell/phigs
	get examples.tar.Z
	bye
---
Rama Mavuduru
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
From: entropy@world.std.com (The Entropic one)
Subject: Best (non patented) lossless image compression?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:28:00 GMT

What would people recommend for a non patented lossless compression technic?
Compression ratio is the most important factor, with decompression speed
being second most important, time to compress is mostly unimportant.

I've looked in the library but the emphasis seems to be on lossy
compression, an idea which doesn't thrill doctors :-)
(I could have sworn there was a tumor there...)



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From: asm@festival.ed.ac.uk (M Smyth)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Anti-A Code
Summary: C code for Anti-Aliasing
Keywords: Aliasing,C
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:56:43 GMT

Could anyone help in a problem I have? I have writen code in C to draw
lines one the screen, unfortunately the lines are jagged. The code I'm
using uses putpixel(x, y, color), how can I change the coding so that
the various pixels around the specified pixel are set to the same colour
but of a different intensity and thus giving me smoother lines?