RE: [Algorithms] FW: [CsMain] Scene Graphs (Open Inventor open source + Performer for Linux)

[Graham S. R. <gr...@se...>]

Matt wrote,

> Hewlett-Packard did an elaborate scene-graph API with fairly advanced
> OCCLUSION CULLING, (i.e. more than just portals or HOMs)
> originally as part
> of Fahrenheit. It was called DirectModel, and it has been used to ship
> products. (by EAI, for one.) Its primary focus was extremely
> large datasets
> (engine simulations, etc.) It was originally only part of the Visualize
> Toolkit.

Wasn't DirectModel supposed to be rolled into Fahrenheit? I think someone at
Sense8 (owned by EAI now) mentioned that to me a year or two ago.

Also, SGI OpenGL Optimizer is similar, and is available for free for
Windows, in its binary form. I'm not sure what they've done on it recently.

I know someone who has used Optimizer and Performer enough to compare their
level-of-detail features. I wish I remembered what he said, but I do
remember that one or the other provided much better performance than the
other. I'm thinking that Performer was better, but I wouldn't swear to it.

I have an SGI 320 workstation running Windows NT on my desktop here at the
office.  It uses the SGI Cobalt 3D chipset. Its performance is abysmal
compared to the new nVidia and ATI offerings. But it does have an
interesting hardware-assisted occlusion culling capability, and a
corresponding OpenGL extension. I think the HP fx graphics have something
like this as well.

> Now, the interesting part is that they recently gave a grant to the
> University of Tuebingen (Germany?) to convert DirectModel to Linux and
> release it as open source.

Now that is interesting...

Graham Rhodes