RE: [Algorithms] FW: [CsMain] Scene Graphs (long tangent rant on "standards")

[Stephen J B. <sj...@li...>]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, Graham S. Rhodes wrote:

> Steve wrote,
> 
> > There are dozens of OpenSourced scene graph API's out there.
> > Inventor becomes yet another.  There are dozens of file formats
> > out there - .iv becomes yet another (and it's essentially just
> > VRML anyway - IIRC)
> 
> Yes, quite true. I hear you and feel your pain. The same situation exists in
> the CAD world. Every solid modeler has its own native file format. CAD
> vendors don't want portability because their established customers would
> then have a choice, an option to choose a different tool without losing
> their past models, their past investment. Competition would become more
> price based---prices would have to come down and all hell would break loose.

Yes - but I'm not talking about standardizing file formats.  If we had a
scene graph API was some kind of a standard - then loaders for a huge
variety of files formats could be built for it.

<snipped story of STEP - which sound PAINFUL!>

> So, in short, I just don't really believe that truly good standard file
> formats can emerge when they are designed by committee. I see more success
> in standard API's. The OpenGL approach is something I like. A top-notch
> company designs something that is simple, works damn well, and they run with
> it, making it available to the world, teaching the world how to use it,
> proving that it is good, superior, extending it over time----and building in
> an extensions mechanism. De facto standards, I believe, are much better than
> true standards, with very few exceptions.

Although - OpenGL is the direct descendent of IrisGL - which was a one
off ad'hoc API that grew in a rather ugly way.  OpenGL's design was
essentially a major cleanup of something that had evolved over a lot of
years.

I agree that ad'hoc standards are a good thing - but there comes a point
where they have to be formalized and taken over by a committee to stablise
them.

> I'll give you another example. Anyone ever heard of PHIGS/PHIGS PLUS?

Yep.

> Probably a good number of you, depending on how long you've been around
> doing 3D graphics. How many of you use it? What about you Playstation 2
> developers? No? Windows? No? Macintosh? No? Linux? No? And yet...PHIGS and
> PHIGS PLUS are ISO standard APIs for 3D graphics.

PHIGS *was* a useful standard in it's day - it's just been obsoleted by
the advent of fast, cheap 3D hardware.

No standard lasts forever - which is why we are not all writing Algol'60
or FORTRAN IV.

----
Science being insufficient - neither ancient protein species deficient.

Steve Baker                      (817)619-2657 (Vox/Vox-Mail)
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