adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu (Adrian J Ho) (06/08/91)
Subject sez it all -- I haven't seen any posts in two days! I guess
it's time for a summary:
What We've Got:
1) Two bids for moderator from John Murray (murray@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu)
and John Woolverton (woolstar@cobalt.caltech.edu). Any other
volunteers should sign up by Jun 10, so that we can take a straw poll
to determine who will be the moderator of the new group. Don't forget
to post a resume of sorts, similar to what you see below. (Sorry for
the tight deadline, but this discussion is due to terminate Jun 16,
and I for one would rather not go into overtime.)
For those of you who missed it, the current candidates' introductions
are included at the end of this message.
What We've Not Got:
1) A name for the newsgroup. At this point, we have the following
suggestions (as compiled by John Woolverton):
comp.graphics.research
comp.graphics.interesting
comp.graphics.development
comp.graphics.programmer
comp.graphics.mod
comp.graphics.theory
comp.graphics.software
As I see it, there's been one heck of a discussion on the above topic,
so I guess it's time to take a vote. Send your vote for newsgroup
name to:
groupname@barkley.berkeley.edu
You may place the name you choose anywhere in the message.
Voting for the groupname begins now and ends 11:59 pm, Jun 14. I will
post a summary of votes around 11:59 pm, Jun 12, and a complete list
of who voted which way, along with a tally up the votes, after the
voting deadline (if you feel strongly against having names listed
against groupname votes, send me email). There will then be 2 days
during which you may choose to discuss matter further or correct my
summary.
2) A charter. Obviously, this depends on the group name. I'll draw
up a charter based on the group name and submit it as early as
possible for general approval.
C'mon, net.folks! Let's hear some more voices out there -- I can't go
this alone!! 8-)
Anyway, as promised, a repost of the introductions of our two
moderator candidates:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Murray (murray@vsjrm.scri.fsu.edu):
What I Do:
I am a graphics and Scientific Visualization programmer and support-
type person for a scientific research organization. I help scientists
in a wide variety of fields produce visualization and presentation graphics
animations, with a strong emphasis on the former. We have resident and
visiting scientists working in theoretical, high-energy, nuclear and
other areas of physics, meteorology, geophysical fluid dynamics, materials
sciences, chemistry, biology, genetics, chaos theory, and more. The
challenges for a graphics person are unusual and interesting here.
I am also 2nd author (of three) of a scientific visualization and
animation program, that also supports automatic video recording. It is
currently running on our Silicon Graphics 4D-240/GTX and our pseudo-
GL-compatible IBM RS6000's. The program is scheduled for beta-release
near the end of this year, and will be released into the public domain
Real Soon thereafter. (depending on results from the beta-release, of course)
If any net.graphics.gurus happened to be there, preliminary results from
in-house and limited external use of this package were discussed by the
first author, Eric Pepke, at the DoE Graphics Forum in Berkeley last month.
Feel free to quiz me further on general terms, but please excuse me if I
avoid the specifics.
So, you might or might not consider me a graphics researcher, (IMO I am..)
however I am definitely a graphics professional, with a strong interest in
what's developing out there in my field.
Former ACM SIGGRAPH member. Egad, the prices! Besides, SCRI's located
on the top floor of the FSU Science Library.. and courtesy of SCRI I am
headed for my second SIGGRAPH in a row, and work for Eric who has been
there yearly since '85.
The Site:
FSU is an ESnet T1 site.
Our News admin did the same thing for other people on campus before
he came here, giving him 3 years as an admin.
We have two separate news sites here on campus, i.e. if our (SCRI's)
news site goes down, there's another one I can use as an NNTPServer to
post through from my workstation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
John Woolverton (woolstar@cobalt.caltech.edu):
What I do,
I am a Senior Programmer with Video Bits, a computer graphics
animation software company, where I design ray tracing and
animation tools for Unix and personal computers. I have designed
several generations of our current software, as well as adapting
it for X, Motif, and the Mac windowing systems.
I work with other computer graphics programmers, evolving
our product, and with animation artists in Los Angeles, trying
to meet their performance and production needs.
My goal to learn about everything in computer graphics, and to
use what I know to write the best rendering software that is practical.
I'm an expert in ray-tracing, modeling, sampling and 3d math;
while I'm a learner in Radiosity, CSG, and artificial reality.
I graduated from the Caltech Graphics Lab, home of many
"big names" like Jim Kajia, Jim Blinn, and Al Barr (my advisor).
Current member of ACM SIGGRAPH. Egad, the prices! I have been
religiously attending SIGGRAPH since it came to Los Angeles
five years ago. The road trip to Siggraph in Atlanta was
an adventure in itself...
My home machine is a Silicon Graphics 4d35 Personal Iris.
Ha!
The site,
The local sysadmin has agreed to create a specific account
for submissions to this group on the system:
nntp-server.caltech.edu
Caltech is connected on the west coast NSF backbone, and I
have access to it both by TCP and modem backup. This site and
account could well exist longer than I, the original VAX BSD
system was in place before I got here, and operations migrated
to sparc stations seemlessly.
My goal,
To manage a forum for computer graphics discussion.
New ideas, old ideas, what people are using, what's being
worked on, what hasn't worked, ... everything. I don't consider
the PC hardware and GIFFLE in comp.gr to be computer graphics
discussion. (I like the term GIFFLE btw.)
I hope to keep a fast turn around. Most of the time I am
on the system and can respond quickly. I don't imagine wanting
to edit postings, except perhapse the subject line to maintain
consistancy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------jorice@maths.tcd.ie (Jonathan Rice) (06/10/91)
Things seem to be firming up well with regard to our new central group - Adrian's call for votes on its name is timely. However, we should not treat this group in isolation. I think most of us see it as only one group out of maybe four or five new comp.graphics groups, each with a well-defined charter to handle separate areas of the computer graphics field, and discussion about these new groups has been virtually absent for a while. If we go ahead and create *just* comp.graphics.theory (or .research, or whatever we decide upon), then yes, we've gained, but we could have gained more by doing a total reorganisation. Can a netexpert tell me if we need to send out a Call For Discussion for *each* of the groups we plan to create, or can we do it under the umbrella of "comp.graphics reorganisation" and use our existing CFD? Whichever, we *urgently* need to discuss division of responsibility between these new groups if they're to be put in place about the same time as comp.graphics.theory/.research. To start the ball rolling again, here's a rough outline of groups I think would be sensible: comp.graphics.theory/.research/.???? Moderated group discussing state-of-the-art computer graphics theory. *Everyone* wants this group. Hopefully we all want the same thing. We shall see, when Adrian gets his draft charter going. comp.graphics.pixutils/.pictures/.picstuff/.???? Unmoderated group discussing anything that has to do with 2-D images (manipulators, convertors, viewers, ftp sites). Essentially the function of alt.graphics.pixutils, moved under the comp.graphics wing and with charter expanded to make it deal with *all* of the tiresome image-related topics swamping comp.graphics now. comp.graphics.applications/.software/.???? Unmoderated group discussing particular applications - e.g. "How do I do <blah> in <blah>?" comp.graphics.hardware Unmoderated group. Discussions of c.g. hardware not "cutting-edge" enough to be in comp.graphics.theory/.research. You know, general hardware stuff. comp.graphics.announce Unmoderated. Announcements of interest to c.g. people - conferences, new ftp sites, new products, etc. This group may not be necessary if people think that the individual specialty groups can handle announcements too. I think it'd be nice, though. comp.graphics.visualization As is. comp.graphics.misc Misc stuff that doesn't fit into any of the other categories easily. General stuff. Unmoderated. Are people thinking somewhat along these lines? Whether you are or not, let's *talk* about it and broaden the discussion out from just the central group. o----------------------o----------------------------o--------------------------o | Jonathan Rice | Email: jorice@cs.tcd.ie | He was a common fly | |----------------------| Tel: 353.1.772941 x2156 (w)| With a taste for fashion | |Computer Science Dept.| 353.1.6245415 (h)| They were thrown together| | Trinity College | Fax: 353.1.772204 | In a heat of passion | | Dublin 2, | woof /\___/ | - "Human Fly", | | Ireland. | /| |\ | The Horseflies | o----------------------o----------------------------o--------------------------o
adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu (Adrian J Ho) (06/13/91)
In article <1991Jun10.140930.23238@maths.tcd.ie> jorice@maths.tcd.ie (Jonathan Rice) writes: >Things seem to be firming up well with regard to our new central group - >Adrian's call for votes on its name is timely. I wish -- I think I delayed too long in calling for votes, hence the current scramble. > However, we should not treat >this group in isolation. I think most of us see it as only one group out of >maybe four or five new comp.graphics groups, each with a well-defined >charter to handle separate areas of the computer graphics field, and discussion >about these new groups has been virtually absent for a while. If we go >ahead and create *just* comp.graphics.theory (or .research, or whatever we >decide upon), then yes, we've gained, but we could have gained more by doing >a total reorganisation. Can a netexpert tell me if we need to send out a >Call For Discussion for *each* of the groups we plan to create, or can we do >it under the umbrella of "comp.graphics reorganisation" and use our existing >CFD? Unless I'm very mistaken, several groups can be lumped together into one discussion and even one vote (else I'd think the current comp.sys.amiga.* hierarchy would have taken AGES to create 8-). However, I believe that this general grouping must exist *from the start*, ie. from the CFD. (Modifications to individual group names and/or charters is of course permitted.) Somebody please correct me if I'm thoroughly mistaken. > Whichever, we *urgently* need to discuss division of responsibility >between these new groups if they're to be put in place about the same time as >comp.graphics.theory/.research. [ suggested groups deleted ] Several people have advanced various arguments against this, and I won't repeat them here. I'd just like to add that, IMHO, a significant fraction of the current traffic on all the graphics newsgroups could be deemed to be "system-specific" (I'm using this term very loosely), like VGA double-buffering or graphics file formats. As such, they are more appropriately dealt with somewhere in the comp.sys.* or even the existing graphics hierarchies. What's left after the removal of such traffic may not be sufficient to justify a plethora of issue-specific groups. I personally would prefer the creation of a single group which is conceptually divorced from all the existing groups, but whose charter (and name, hopefully) admits a broad base of discussion with a minimum overlap with the current groups. If, after a suitable period of time, we all feel that the base is _too_ broad, we can begin a new discussion about spawning off new groups. In this way, we can (hopefully) avoid the "horror" of comp.sys.amiga.*.
bstewart@bnlux1.bnl.gov (Bruce Stewart) (06/13/91)
In article <ADRIANHO.91Jun12164558@barkley.berkeley.edu> adrianho@barkley.berkeley.edu (Adrian J Ho) writes: > >I personally would prefer the creation of a single group which is >conceptually divorced from all the existing groups, but whose charter >(and name, hopefully) admits a broad base of discussion with a minimum >overlap with the current groups. If, after a suitable period of time, I am also unconvinced of the need for adding more than one group at the present time; in fact, I am not fully convinced of the need for adding any.