echidna@ecr.mu.oz.au (Eric H. Echidna) (06/14/91)
Recently it came to our attention that someone might have
attempted developing an SGI GL compatible library using an early
version of VOGLE, and while not only giving very little credit to the
large amount of VOGLE code contained in it, even suggesting that VOGLE
was derivative work.
While we hope that any rumor concerning people grossly misrepresenting
work which was done by us will prove to be untrue (and this will be looked
into), it did seem like an interesting idea to find out how difficult it
would be to convert VOGLE to an SGI GL compatible library. As it turned out it
took about 60 marsupial hours spread over a period of four weeks to do it.
Although there are several SGI GL compatible libraries already
available, we believe this to be the only one that provides some
support for things like double buffering and backfacing, as well as
running on a variety of PC's in addition to X11, sunview, etc...
Consequently we have decided to make the result of our efforts (now
called VOGL) available and we would like to offer it as an example
of what can be done when the people who did the original work on one
problem address another problem of a similar nature, using the original
work, and their understanding of it, as the basis for finding a
solution. If there is sufficient interest, we will try to ensure
that bugs, enhancements, etc... are dealt with as they are sent to us.
The README is attached below.
We have also included a hershey library which is written in SGI GL, but
will also run with VOGL.
It is available via anonymous ftp from:
gondwana.ecr.mu.oz.au:pub/vogl.tar.Z [128.250.1.63]
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The directories in this directory contain the source for the VOGL library
and the library hershey which is for manipulating the Hershey font data.
They are as follows:
docs contains the documentation such as there is.
drivers contains the source to a variety of device drivers,
currently restricted to: postcript, sun workstation,
apollo workstations, X11 (R2, R3 & R4), tektronix
(401x), hpgl, dxy, and the ibm pc cards: hercules mono,
cga, ega, vga and sigma.
examples contains some C and FORTRAN programs useful both in
testing and (hopefully) learning how to use it.
hershey contains the source for the hershey library plus the
source for generating fonts and the hershey data for
the occidental and oriental character sets. Note: as
with VOGL this library is callable in C and FORTRAN.
src contains the source for the C VOGL interface, and the
source for the FORTRAN interfaces where available.
VOGL is a device portable graphics library that tries to be Silicon Graphics
Iris GL compatible. Our intention is that any VOGL program will compile
unchanged on a machine running SGI GL (the examples do). VOGL is based
entirely on our other graphics library VOGLE. While we still regard VOGLE
as our main library (it is, and probably will be for some time to come, the
one that gets the most use around here), we will gratefully accept any bug
fixes or enhancements. As always suggestions are also welcome.
This software may be used for any purpose commercial or otherwise. It is
offered without any guarantee as to its suitability for any purpose or as
to the sanity of its writers. We do ask that the source is passed on to
anyone that requests a copy, and that people who get copies don't go round
claiming they wrote it (that is why this one has a copyright notice in it,
see file COPYRIGHT).
Although VOGL is free we will drink any quantity of Beer you send to us.
Regards,
Eric H. Echidna
Snail mail correspondance and alcoholic beverages should be directed to:
The Software Support Programmer
Department Of Engineering Computer Resources
Faculty Of Engineering
University Of Melbourne Vic 3052
Australia
email to
echidna@munnari.OZ.AU
echidna@ecr.mu.OZ.AU