Subject: vogle

From: [email-masked] (J.D. Beutel)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 91 03:42:27 -0400

I got the vogle 3D graphics library, and read its docs.
It's supposed to be very similar to SGI's GL.  Perhaps someone
familiar with either could advise me.

I'm thinking of using it for virtual reality work with the glove.
The library calls look just like CORE, which is an old standard
I'm familiar with.  Both are capable of 3D, but with CORE it
translated the world coordinates to device coordinates immediately,
which meant that every time you wanted to change perspective
(i.e., move your point of view), you had to enter all the world
coordinates again.  That seemed real ugly for a world I may
want to be flying thru.  Does VOGLE require the same thing?
CORE had one-level "segments", but not VOGLE's multi-level
"objects" (which can call other objects).  Does this make up for 
redrawing the world at every perspective change (e.g., define
everything in terms of objects, define a root object containing
every other object, and just redraw the root object each time
you change perspective).  Is this a nice way to do it?
Is VOGLE quick enuf for real-time response?

Its source is available so I could try converting one of its many 
supported device drivers to one for the ST.  It does double-buffering,
which is probably good enuf in itself for shutter glasses.
Quadruple-buffering would be needed for a head-mounted display
with two screens, but since the source is there it shouldn't be too hard.
It also supports a lot of hardware; that's very attractive.
Does anyone have any comments on it?

--
J. David Beutel  11011011  [email-masked]      "I am, therefore I am."