rost@granite.dec.com (Randi Rost) (01/10/90)
Wondering where to get the famous teapot data? As a service to the graphics community, Digital Equipment Corporation has donated disk space and established an archive server to maintain a library of (somewhat) interesting objects. The objects collected are in OFF format. Documentation on OFF, a library of useful OFF routines, and one or two useful OFF utilities are also available through this archive server. The archive server lets you obtain ASCII files across the network simply by sending electronic mail. To obtain help about using this service, send a message with a "Subject:" line containing only the word "help" and a null message body to: object-archive-server@decwrl.dec.com To get an index of all that is available through this server, use a subject line of "send index" instead of "help". To get a list of objects that are available use a subject line of "send index objects" and a null message body. In order to save disk space and transmission time, the more lengthy files available through this archive are compressed using the UNIX "compress" utility and then uuencoded so that they may be sent as ASCII files. For those of you who don't have access to these utilities, buddy up to someone who does. As with other archive servers, it is only possible to get small portions of the database at a time. Small requests have priority over large ones. If you have ftp access, you can copy all of the objects and OFF programs from the file ~pub/DEC/off.tar.Z on the machine gatekeeper.dec.com. Please respect the copyright notices attached to the objects in the .off header files. The original author usually worked pretty hard to create the model, and deserves some credit when it is displayed. If anyone out there knows something about any of the objects I've left uncredited, please let me know so that I can include the appropriate credits. We'd *LOVE* to add to this collection of useful programs and objects. If you'd like to submit an object, an OFF program, or an OFF converter of some type for inclusion in the archive, send mail to: object-archive-submit@decwrl.dec.com We cannot guarantee anything about when submissions will be made available as part of the object archive, since maintaining the archive is an after-hours activity. We can only promise that an interesting or useful object that is already in OFF format will make it into the archive more quickly than one that has to be converted from another format and then tested. To report problems with the archive server, send mail to: object-archive-manager@decwrl.dec.com This same archive server will also be used to distribute Benchmark Interface Format (BIF) files for the Graphics Performance Characterization (GPC) Picture-Level Benchmark (PLB). These files contain commands that define how a picture or sequence of pictures is to be drawn. The time it takes to process the BIF file on a particular platform can be measured. It is therefore possible to create a BIF file that mimics the behavior of your favorite application area, process it on several platforms to which the PLB code has been ported, and get an apples-to-apples comparison of exactly the type of graphics performance that interests you most. It is planned to release the PLB code and a sample set of BIF files at NCGA '90. When this happens, these things will be available as part of the object archive server, as well as by ftp access from gatekeeper. People that are interested in finding out more about PLB and BIF should contact Dianne Dean at NCGA, 2722 Merrilee Drive, Suite 200, Fairfax, VA 22031, (703) 698-9600 and request the most current BIF spec. We are also interested in redistributing interesting BIF files that people develop, or programs that convert other database types to BIF. Such submissions should also be mailed to object-archive-submit@decwrl.dec.com. Finally, we have added to the graphics bibliography that is also available through decwrl. Bibliographies from the years 1976-1981, 1983, and 1985-1986 are now available for use with the graf-bib server. This server can be accessed in the same manner as the object archive server by sending mail to: graf-bib-server@decwrl.dec.com The years 1982 and 1984 have been received and await further editing before they can be included. We hope to make them available by the end of the month as well. The bibliographies will also be available for ftp access from gatekeeper once they are all ready to go. For more information on using the graf-bib server, see the April 1989 issue of Computer Graphics, pp. 185-186. Randi J. Rost Workstations Advanced Technology Development Digital Equipment Corporation