hinkle@vim.brl.mil (Gerald Hinkle ) (04/25/91)
Please forgive my typing- I'm stuck in EDit. (Don't ask! :-) ) Recently, someone posted a request for info about (PD?) rendering and ray tracing programs for MS-DOS machines, and I believe someone else asked for similar programs for Macs. I would be interested in that information as well. I checked the FAQ post- no packages listed. Names of packages, features in brief, req'd hardware, and availability would be super. Names and locations/dealers would be adequate for my "shopping". In case it isn't obvious, I'm just starting in 3D graphics. If the original posters are planning on summarizing, please do! If you aren't going to post a summary, could you email me with the info? I'd really appreciate it.
npw@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Nicholas Wilt) (04/26/91)
In article <707@aos.brl.mil> hinkle@vim.brl.mil (Gerald Hinkle ) writes: > >Please forgive my typing- I'm stuck in EDit. (Don't ask! :-) ) > >Recently, someone posted a request for info about (PD?) rendering and >ray tracing programs for MS-DOS machines, and I believe someone else >asked for similar programs for Macs. I would be interested in that >information as well. I checked the FAQ post- no packages listed. > >Names of packages, features in brief, req'd hardware, and availability >would be super. Names and locations/dealers would be adequate for my >"shopping". In case it isn't obvious, I'm just starting in 3D graphics. I have written a ray tracing package in Turbo C++ with the following features: Ray tracing: Primitives are box, bounding box, polygon, quadric, sphere Limited support of OFF standard (specifically, the ray tracer will read the OFF files included with vort 2.0 :-). Any object may have any transformation applied to it - translation, rotation about X, Y, or Z axes, yaw-pitch-roll rotation, scaling and combinations of the above A large number of approaches to reduce the number of intersection tests Unusually flexible shading model: - Specular and reflective components all have vectors for attenuation - Light sources may be attenuated not at all, linearly, by the square of the distance or a combination of all three Display: I have implemented median-cut color quantization in C++, and I have a display program which will use the SVGA capabilities of an ATI VGA Wonder. I plan to turn this program into a GIF converter, so that all those SVGA/8514 GIF viewers will support it. Input language: Powerful and easy to understand Include files supported Vectors, transformation matrices, colors, or objects may be assigned to variables and instantiated later Hardware required is an IBM PC. You need at least VGA to display the pretty pictures, but you don't need any special hardware to crunch the images (although a coprocessor helps a _LOT_). I plan to release version 1.0 beta not long from now. I have to finish testing the input language, polish the documentation, and fix the median- cut quantizer so it outputs GIF instead of displaying on an ATI VGA Wonder. If you are interested in a copy of the beta release, please email me. --Nick npw@eleazar.dartmouth.edu PS - vort can be ported to IBM PCs. I compiled it without incident with Microsoft C, but I haven't checked it out beyond that.
jk87377@cc.tut.fi (Juhana Kouhia) (04/27/91)
In article <707@aos.brl.mil> hinkle@vim.brl.mil (Gerald Hinkle ) writes: > >In case it isn't obvious, I'm just starting in 3D graphics. How about starting from this book: %A Andrew S. Glassner %A Jim Arvo %A Robert L. Cook %A Eric Haines %A Pat Hanrahan %A Paul Heckbert %A David B. Kirk %B An Introduction to Ray Tracing %E Andrew S. Glassner %I Academic Press %C London %D 1989 %O earlier versions as course notes at SIGGRAPH '87 and '88 Programming your own ray tracer is more fun than copying from the others. I assume that you would like to KNOW how the ray tracer works, so take my advice. If you use a ray tracer made by others, I bet that you don't use it more than a couple of months and then you leave the program. But if you make your own program you know how to add new features to it and so you can make something new to it whenever you would like to. And one point more: The ray tracers in the net are not so complex that you can add to them whatever you like to. They just are not so called test-bed programs. Juhana Kouhia
zap@lysator.liu.se (Zap Andersson) (04/29/91)
hinkle@vim.brl.mil (Gerald Hinkle ) writes: >Please forgive my typing- I'm stuck in EDit. (Don't ask! :-) ) >Recently, someone posted a request for info about (PD?) rendering and >ray tracing programs for MS-DOS machines, and I believe someone else >asked for similar programs for Macs. I would be interested in that >information as well. I checked the FAQ post- no packages listed. I think THIS is a great idea. >Names of packages, features in brief, req'd hardware, and availability >would be super. Names and locations/dealers would be adequate for my >"shopping". In case it isn't obvious, I'm just starting in 3D graphics. As for available software, I just "happen" :-) to know about a program called "RayTracker", mostly because I wrote it :-) However, RayTracker is a commercial rendering program available from EMT AB/Inc/Ltd in Sweden/USA/U.K. and specialized in rendering models from AutoCAD, and runs on PC and will be ported to most platforms supporting AutoCAD. It has a easy-to-use graphical user interface, advanced shading capabilities e.t.c. e.t.c.... Anyone want more info, I *could* post here, but since it is commercial I'll probably get flamed to high heaven if I post some lengthy stuff about oh-how-great it is, so for now, just let's say this: A) Anybody want info on the software, mail me at zap@lysator.liu.se or just reply to this message B) Check out the animations at the site tolsun.oulu.fi in /pub/rayscene/RayTracker Happy hacking! -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (This rent for space) * My signature is smaller than * Be warned! The letter 'Z' is Copyright 1991 * yours! - zap@lysator.liu.se * by Zap Inc. So are the colors Red, Green and * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Greenish-yellow (Blue was taken by IBM) -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * (This rent for space) * My signature is smaller than * Be warned! The letter 'Z' is Copyright 1991 * yours! - zap@lysator.liu.se * by Zap Inc. So are the colors Red, Green and * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Greenish-yellow (Blue was taken by IBM)