Python Computer Graphics Kit / News: Recent posts

The release includes Windows binaries for Python 2.5 and 2.6 and an OSX binary for Python 2.5 (built on OSX 10.4).

There are two new modules:

- cri: An alternative ctypes-based RenderMan binding that directly links to a renderer.

- mayabinary: Parse Maya binary files

See the changelog for a full list of additions/fixes.

I've just released cgkit alpha7 and Python/Maya 0.9.3. Most work went into the Python/Maya package which has a lot of improvements (see the release notes).

I've moved the code base from CVS to Subversion. If anybody was using the cvs version then please check out a new version from svn instead.

The cgkit Python package is under cgkit/trunk and the Maya stuff is in maya/trunk.

- Matthias -

The alpha6 release of cgkit is out and an initial "preview" release of the Maya Python package. This package contains a Maya plugin to execute Python source code and a Python 'maya' package to access Maya data (you can invoke all MEL commands and you have about 80% of the Maya SDK classes available).

Finally, I've added some screenshots to the SF screenshots section. Two of the images are rendered with Aqsis (http://www.aqsis.org) and are generated using the 'grow' utility (which is available in the utilities directory). The other three images are examples of interactive applications. The first labyrinth screenshot was taken from the Ogre viewer (note the shadows). Physics is provided by ODE/PyODE (http://www.ode.org & http://pyode.sf.net\).

Major new functionality: The render tool can be used to bake texture maps (see tutorial on the web site). Partial support for importing Maya .ma files. Import/export of PLY files.
For a complete list of changes and bugfixes see the changelog.

See the changelog for a list of new features and bugfixes.

Second alpha release of cgkit2. Major new functionality: Wrappers around Wintab by LCS/Telegraphics, 3DxWare SDK by 3Dconnexion and Glove SDK by 5DT.
See the changelog for a complete list of changes.

First alpha release of cgkit2. Major new functionality: The kit can now maintain geometry in memory where it can be manipulated. This turns Python into a scripting language like MEL, MaxScript, etc. This release should be seen as an intermediate release that still lacks a lot of functionality. But on the other hand, there is also a lot of stuff that's already working, so it might already be useful in its current state.

This release contains a few small bug fixes. The Windows binaries were created with a more recent version of Pyrex which fixes a crash that occured in Python 2.2 during a garbage collection cycle after a vector has been unpacked. Python 2.3 was not affected by this bug.

Two new modules "cgkitinfo" and "slparams" and a bunch of fixes and additions (see changelog).

The binary for Python 2.2 was broken and the generated file cgtypes.c was a modified version for Python 2.3, Pyrex 0.8.2 and VC6 (which didn't work on Linux). Apart from that there's no difference from release 1.0, so if you got 1.0 to work you don't have to download this release.

First non-beta release. See the change log for fixes and enhancements.

Rewrite of cgtypes using Pyrex to speed up the types. The old pure Python cgtypes are still available in pycgtypes.

The noise module is far more complete now (pnoise, cellnoise, fBm, turbulence,...). The package should also compile under Linux without any problems. See the changelog for a complete list of changes.

The first beta version is available. The new types and the RenderMan binding are fully implemented. The other modules are still work in progress.