[Closed REQ 5079]: Problem with 1.4.2

["Tamara Munzner" <munzner>]

 > 1) The instructions in OOGL.m imply that setting $GeomRoot to the
 > distribution directory will put math2oogl on $PATH. This does not
 > appear to be so.

No, that's not quite it. There are two possible installation
approaches.  *Either* you need to install math2oogl into a directory
on your path (like /usr/local/bin), *or* if there is no way to do so
you can change both $GeomviewPath and $GeomRoot so that the OOGL.m
package calls the math2oogl program with an absolute path name. In the
second case, math2oogl is not on $PATH. The first case is preferable.
Here are the installation instructions directly from the manual.

  2. The package `OOGL.m' needs to be able to invoke the programs
     `geomview', `math2oogl', and `oogl2rib'.  The Geomview
     installation procedure installs these programs into a directory that you
     specify for executables (`BINDIR').  Ideally, this directory should
     be on your shell's `$path'.  More specifically, it should be on
     the `$path' of the shell in which Mathematica runs; the directory
     `/usr/local/bin' is usually a good choice.  You can see the list of
     directories on this path by giving the command `!echo $path' in
     Mathematica.

     If for some reason you can't arrange for `geomview',
     `math2oogl', and `oogl2rib' to be in a directory on the
     shell's `$path', you can modify `OOGL.m' to cause it to look
     for them using absolute pathnames.  To do this, change the definitions
     of the variables `$GeomviewPath' and `$GeomRoot', which are
     defined near the top of the file.  Change `$GeomviewPath' to the
     absolute pathname of the `geomview' shell script on your system.
     Change `$GeomRoot' to the absolute pathname of the
     `$GEOMROOT' directory on your system.  If you do this, you should
     also make sure there are copies of `geomview', `math2oogl',
     and `oogl2rib' in the `$GEOMROOT/bin/sgi' (on an SGI) or
     `$GEOMROOT/bin/next' (on a NeXT) directory.

 > 2) After I do <<Geomview.m in my Mathematica session and I plot
 > something, it is displayed alright. However, it is displayed in black
 > and white.

While you're used to seeing colored objects in Mathematica, unless
you've explicitly assigned colors to the object what you're seeing is
the effect of colored lights. For instance, if you try viewing the
following surface it should come up in color in Geomview:
	Plot3D[{x*y + 6, RGBColor[0,x,y]}, {x,0,1}, {y,0,1}]

Although Geomview lights are white by default, you can have Geomview
use similar lighting to Mathematica if you put the following text in a
file in your home directory called ".geomview":

(merge-baseap
 {appearance {lighting {replacelights 
   ambient .3 .3 .3
   light {
	color 1 0 0
	position 1 0 1 0
   }
   light {	   
	color 0 1 0
	position 1 1 1 0
   }
   light {	   
	color 0 0 1
	position 0 1 1 0
   }
}}}
)
 
 > Further, I find that the gvx process keeps running
 > constantly, taking up all of the cpu. Is this normal?

Hmm. This shouldn't happen if the object is still. It will take up CPU
time if the object is moving. Are you sure the object was totally
stopped? 

Hope this helps,
Tamara Munzner          ((555) 555-5555
munzner at geom.umn.edu    The Geometry Center