Re: 3d terminals - any hope?

[Ethan A M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Sunday 30 March 2008 08:40, Michail Vidiassov wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> is there any plans to make real 3d terminal API that would provide 
> terminal driver with x,y,z as opposed to current x,y?

No.
That's not to say we would be opposed to such a plan, were someone to
present a concrete proposal. But as of this moment there is no such
plan.

 
> IMHO, there were attempts to introduce VRML and POV-Ray output, but they
> had to be hacks and were not welcomed by the core team.
> 
> The reason for my interest is the fact that now Adobe Reader has 3D 
> capabilities, it can show embedded 3D models without any plugins.
> That may solve one of the problems of 3D adoption - the lack of a widely 
> installed viewer.
> There is free software to make such models from VRML-like text files and 
> embed them into PDF.
> (a gallery of 3D pdfs is at http://www.pdf3d.co.uk/gallery.php
> scientific use example can be fount at  http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/s2plot/3dpdf/ )
> 
> Hope that will make the gnuplot team reevaluate the prospects of 3D support.

As always in a collaborative open source project, the best way to move a project
in a particular direction is to contribute code.  Let me note, however, that I
don't the that lack of viewers is a major problem.  The bigger issue is simply
that gnuplot was never designed for 3D use.  Some fairly major changes to the
infrastructure would probably be needed;  it may not be worth the effort.


-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle 98195-7742