tjh@ouzo.bu.edu (Tim Hall) (01/08/90)
In article <1990Jan7.174208.27895@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> lansd@dgp.toronto.edu (Robert Lansdale) writes: > >for a TAAC board (we have a number of Iris/4D's but only one 24-bit Iris >display and a 24-bit TAAC board which is only writable from a SUN). > >---> Rob Lansdale It could be that I'm the one confused but... Awhile ago I posted a question about DGL on SUN's and got replies from people suprised that the DGL ran on SUN's. People also seemed confused about what the DGL does. As I understand it, the DGL only uses the SGI geometry engine, but it allows you to send commands to it from remote machines. So, a dgl routine won't use a TAAC (or any other non-SGI engine/display) to compute or display an image on. The question... When using the DGL and making a display list (graphical object) does it save the display list on the server or the client? -Tim Hall tjh@bu-pub.bu.edu "The world is filled with the cries of dispossessed children in search of paradise" -Dead Can Dance
tarolli@riva.esd.sgi.com (Gary Tarolli) (01/09/90)
In article <50204@bu.edu.bu.edu>, tjh@ouzo.bu.edu (Tim Hall) writes: > In article <1990Jan7.174208.27895@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> lansd@dgp.toronto.edu (Robert Lansdale) writes: > > Awhile ago I posted a question about DGL on SUN's and got replies from > people suprised that the DGL ran on SUN's. People also seemed > confused about what the DGL does. As I understand it, the DGL only > uses the SGI geometry engine, but it allows you to send commands to > it from remote machines. So, a dgl routine won't use a TAAC (or > any other non-SGI engine/display) to compute or display an image on. > > The question... > > When using the DGL and making a display list (graphical object) does > it save the display list on the server or the client? > To answer your last question first, the DGL saves the display list on the server, so that calling the display list costs the client very little and results in very little network traffic. The DGL is basically a custom Remote Procedure Call (RPC) library for the GL. Its the equivalent of the X client library. It allows you to call the GL from a client machine by sending RPC tokens over a network to a server. Almost all GL routines get token'ized and sent to the server for execution. Almost no code executes on the client except for packing these tokens into a buffer and writing the buffer occasionally. The client library is portable and so far has been ported to SUN, VAX/VMS, VAX/BSD, Convex, Alliant, IBM, and Cray client hosts. The server only runs on SGI graphic workstations. -- Gary Tarolli