getting started with geomview

["Seth Teller" <seth at glare.Princeton.EDU>]

hi stuart, tamara, mark, daeron, et al --

first off, thanks for your work with geomview.
i and lots of others really appreciate your
effort in building something and putting it out.

after years of GL hacking, i'm looking around
for visualization alternatives.  i have a simple
task in mind, and i'm trying to implement it
in geomview and inventor just to get an idea
of what's required.

here's the task:  i want to visualize line/point
duality in the plane.  very simple.  given a line
with implicit equation

	ax + by + c  [subject to a^2 + b^2 + c^2 = 1],

dualize the line to the point

	a, b

and similarly dualize a point a,b to a line (a,b,c).

what would be required to visualize this?
	two 2d cartesian coordinate systems xy and ab,
	    in (perhaps, but not necessarily) separate windows

	a "constructor" that gives a new line in
	    xy (perhaps by connecting two points)
	    or a new point in ab.  each invocation
	    would construct its dual in the other view,
	    suitably positioned for selection

	a "manipulator" to select, highlight, and move
	    points/lines, and recompute their duals as needed.

i spent the morning reading through geomview doc and
sources, and running examples.  it wasn't at all clear
to me that i can do what i want with geomview.

first, i didn't see any two-viewport examples (this is
not a big problem, although it would be nice to
partition the spaces).

second, how exactly do i select and move a primitive?
i.e., highlight a vertex and move it around in some
reasonable plane, or highlight a line (segment) and
move it around?

anyway, i was hoping you all could point me to,
or supply me with, examples which are modifiable to
do what i need to do.

thanks,

seth

ps please give my regards to nina, my ex-office-mate.

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