king@motcid.UUCP (Steven King) (06/30/90)
Here's a tough order to fill: I'm looking for a program that can plot points (no connections between them necessary) in three dimensions and then allow me to rotate the whole shebang to any viewing orientation I might like. Points could be input as either X,Y,Z or spherical coordinates. If we wanted to get fancy, I'd also like this linked to a database where each point would have an extensive entry, much more than just its physical position. I'd like to enter some sort of command equivalent to "Highlight every point that meets requirements a, b, and c in red, and every point that meets d or e in blue." I don't ask for much, do I? :-) What I'm trying to do is come up with a realistic universe for a role-playing game (a real one, not a computer game!) that I'm GMing. The points are stars, and the database would contain entries about worlds orbitting those stars. I'm trying to get away from the two-dimensional starmaps that are so common in this genre of game, but I can't see a reasonable way to take the extra step without massive computer support. Time constraints prohibit me from writing my own software. (That and the fact that I program for a living and I like to do other things in my spare time! :-) Any pointers? ---------------------------------------------------+--------------------------- If there's a byte of data in the computer but no | Steve King (708) 991-8056 pointer is pointing to it, then it isn't really | ...uunet!motcid!king there. | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek -- ---------------------------------------------------+--------------------------- If there's a byte of data in the computer but no | Steve King (708) 991-8056 pointer is pointing to it, then it isn't really | ...uunet!motcid!king there. | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek
king@motcid.UUCP (Steven King) (07/03/90)
I got one helpful response and two that asked me to forward answers, so I figured a summary was in order. My original question was... >Here's a tough order to fill: I'm looking for a program that can plot points >(no connections between them necessary) in three dimensions and then allow me >to rotate the whole shebang to any viewing orientation I might like. Points >could be input as either X,Y,Z or spherical coordinates. The helpful response was from Scott Sutherland (sutherla@qtp.ufl.edu), who pointed me towards the "AnimBalls" program on Fish Disk 157. From the Fish description: A nifty little animation program that allows you to create a collection of balls in 3D space and then interactively rotate them in real time using the mouse. Includes source. Scott claims to have had up to 50 balls on-screen at once. I haven't had time to play with it, but AnimBalls (perhaps with some work) looks like it might fill my display requirements. -- ---------------------------------------------------+--------------------------- If all you do in life are important things, then | Steve King (708) 991-8056 you'll never have any fun -- unless having fun | ...uunet!motcid!king is an important thing to you. | ...ddsw1!palnet!stevek