Geomview

[mbp]

Jeff,
  We just released a new version of Geomview; I'll include a copy of
the release announcement below.   It includes a short summary of
the program.  In specific response to your questions:

> 1) What platforms are supported for Geomview? Sun? SGI? HP?

Currently SGI and NeXTStep (both NeXT workstations and 486 PCs running
NeXTStep).  We have a generic X version under development which will
run on Suns and HPs and many other platforms; a beta version should be
ready within a few weeks.  If you are interested using the beta
version, let us know.

> 2) Is there a toolkit version or support for Geomview?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  Can you be more specific?

> 3) Could Real-Time applications be developed from Geomview?

Yes.  They're called "external modules" in Geomview jargon.  The
summary below mentions a little bit about them, and the Geomview
manual goes into a fair amount of detail.

--Mark

Subject: Geomview 1.4.1: Free 3D viewer for SGI, NeXTStep

The staff of the Geometry Center announce the release of version 1.4.1
of Geomview, an interactive geometry viewing program.  This version of
Geomview runs on Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, NeXT
workstations, and 486 PCs running NeXTStep 3.x.  The distribution
includes source code and compiled binaries for these architectures.

Geomview is available via anonymous ftp on the Internet from host
geom.umn.edu (IP address 128.101.25.35).  It's in the subdirectory
`pub/software/geomview'.  Get the file README in that directory for
details.  The main distribution files are:

  geomview-sgi.tar.Z:	Compiled binaries for SGI workstations.
  geomview-next.tar:	Compiled binaries for NeXTStep 3.x systems.
  geomview-src.tar.Z:	Source code.

We recommend that you get one of the compiled binary distributions
unless you specifically want to look at the source code.

Geomview is also available via our World Wide Web server; our URL is
"http://freeabel.geom.umn.edu/".

This release contains many bug fixes and several new features and
external modules.  Another addition is a comprehensive user's manual.
We are working on a version of Geomview for generic X windows; it
should become available within the next few months.

Geomview has been developed in the research environment of the
Geometry Center where there is an emphasis on visualization of
mathematical concepts.  It can be used as a standalone viewer for
static objects or as a display engine for other programs which produce
dynamically changing geometry.  Geomview was described in the
``Computers and Mathematics'' column of the October 1993 issue of the
Notices of the American Mathematical Society.  A brief overview of its
capabilities is appended to the bottom of this message.

The Geometry Center is an NSF-funded research center based at the
University of Minnesota.  Its mission is to support, develop, and
promote the computation and visualization of geometric structures.
The Geometry Center's official name is the "National Science and
Technology Research Center for Computation and Visualization of
Geometry Structures".

We are very interested in getting feedback from people who use
Geomview, so please let us hear from you!  Send correspondence via
email to software@geom.umn.edu, or via regular mail to

Software Development Group
Geometry Center
1300 South 2nd Street, Suite 500
Minneapolis, MN  55454
USA

Thank you!

The Geometry Center Software Development Group
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overview of Geomview
********************

Geomview's main purpose is to display objects whose geometry is given,
allowing interactive control over details such as point of view, speed
of movement, appearance of surfaces and lines, and so on.  Geomview can
handle any number of objects and allows both separate and collective
control over them.  

The simplest way to use Geomview is as a standalone viewer to see
and manipulate objects.  It can display objects described in a variety
of file formats.  It comes with a wide variety of example objects, and
you can create your own objects.

You can also use Geomview to handle the display of data coming from
another program that is running simultaneously.  As the other program
changes the data, the Geomview image reflects the changes.  Programs
that generate objects and use Geomview to display them are called
*external modules*.  External modules can control almost all
aspects of Geomview.  The idea here is that many aspects of the display
and interaction parts of geometry software are independent of the
geometric content and can be collected together in a single piece of
software that can be used in a wide variety of situations.  The author
of the external module can then concentrate on implementing the desired
algorithms and leave the display aspects to Geomview.  Geomview comes
with a collection of sample external modules, and this manual describes
how to write your own.

Geomview represents the current state of an ongoing effort at the
Geometry Center to provide interactive geometry software that is
particularly appropriate for mathematics research and education.  In
particular, Geomview can display things in hyperbolic and spherical
space as well as Euclidean space.

Geomview allows multiple independently controllable objects and
cameras.  It provides interactive control for motion, appearances
(including lighting, shading, and materials), picking on an object,
edge or vertex level, snapshots in SGI image file or Renderman RIB
format, and adding or deleting objects is provided through direct
mouse manipulation, control panels, and keyboard shortcuts.

Geomview supports the following simple data types: polyhedra with
shared vertices (.off), quadrilaterals, rectangular meshes, vectors,
and Bezier surface patches of arbitrary degree including rational
patches. Object hierarchies can be constructed with lists of objects
and instances of object(s) transformed by one or many 4x4 matrices.
Arbitrary portions of changing hierarchies may be transmitted by
creating named references.

Geomview can display Mathematica graphics output.