plib-devel

[Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Brad C. <bco...@ac...>]

Hey folks,

Is anyone looking into "porting" TerreX's Terrapage terrain paging code
over to PLIB?

I was thinking that it would blow some peoples minds to see large area
terrain paging on a free scene-graph.

Their source is free (within bounds) and all it needs is the layer between
the paging/memory management to the SSG.

http://www.terrex.com/terrapage.htm

Brad Colbert
GreyStone Technology, Inc.
bco...@ac...
(858) 874-7000

RE: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Norman V. <nh...@ca...>]

Brad Colbert writes:
>
>Is anyone looking into "porting" TerreX's Terrapage terrain paging code
>over to PLIB?
>
>Their source is free (within bounds) and all it needs is the 
>layer between the paging/memory management to the SSG.
>
>http://www.terrex.com/terrapage.htm

Hi Brad

Any more info on this.  The above link seems dead
and I could not find any other info about 'code' on their site.

BTW
Have you checked out FlightGear
http://www.flightgear.org
It has a fairly simplistic paging mechanism
but you can fly around the Earth using its
SSG loading mechanism :^)

Norman Vine

Re: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Brad C. <bco...@ac...>]

Hi Norman,

The link seems to work for me.  It does end in .htm vs. .html.  That
does tend to cause a transcription error.

I've poked around in FlightGear early on but have not kept tabs on
it's current state.  (I was poking around with the celestial code trying
to see how hard it was to port to other systems)

There are some interesting demos that come with the 
source.  Let me know if you still have problems.

-Brad


>From: "Norman Vine" <nh...@ca...>
> Brad Colbert writes:
> >
> >Is anyone looking into "porting" TerreX's Terrapage terrain paging code
> >over to PLIB?
> >
> >Their source is free (within bounds) and all it needs is the 
> >layer between the paging/memory management to the SSG.
> >
> >http://www.terrex.com/terrapage.htm
> 
> Hi Brad
> 
> Any more info on this.  The above link seems dead
> and I could not find any other info about 'code' on their site.
> 
> BTW
> Have you checked out FlightGear
> http://www.flightgear.org
> It has a fairly simplistic paging mechanism
> but you can fly around the Earth using its
> SSG loading mechanism :^)
> 
> Norman Vine
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> plib-devel mailing list
> pli...@li...
> http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/plib-devel
> 

Re: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Curtis L. O. <cu...@me...>]

Brad Colbert writes:
> The link seems to work for me.  It does end in .htm vs. .html.  That
> does tend to cause a transcription error.

Maybe they are suffering from the dreaded "plib-dot effect". :-)

> I've poked around in FlightGear early on but have not kept tabs on
> it's current state.  (I was poking around with the celestial code trying
> to see how hard it was to port to other systems)
> 
> There are some interesting demos that come with the 
> source.  Let me know if you still have problems.

Brad,

The flightgear sun/moon/star/planet code has been all ssg-ified and
separated out.  The goal was to create something that could be easily
dropped into other ssg-based projects.  (I still have one issue with
the moon rendering as I just recently posted, but hopefully Steve or
someone else can provide some insight on that front.)  This
independence of the celestial code is somewhat theoretical and has
never really been put to the test so if you have any questions, or
give it a try and run into any issues please don't hesitate to contact
me.

Regards,

Curt.
-- 
Curtis Olson   Human Factors Research Lab       Flight Gear Project
Twin Cities    cu...@hf...                cu...@fl...
Minnesota      http://www.menet.umn.edu/~curt   http://www.flightgear.org

Re: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Durk T. <d.t...@ch...>]

"Curtis L. Olson" wrote:

> Brad Colbert writes:
> > The link seems to work for me.  It does end in .htm vs. .html.  That
> > does tend to cause a transcription error.
>
> Maybe they are suffering from the dreaded "plib-dot effect". :-)
>
> > I've poked around in FlightGear early on but have not kept tabs on
> > it's current state.  (I was poking around with the celestial code trying
> > to see how hard it was to port to other systems)
> >
> > There are some interesting demos that come with the
> > source.  Let me know if you still have problems.
>
> Brad,
>
> The flightgear sun/moon/star/planet code has been all ssg-ified and
> separated out.  The goal was to create something that could be easily
> dropped into other ssg-based projects.  (I still have one issue with
> the moon rendering as I just recently posted, but hopefully Steve or
> someone else can provide some insight on that front.)  This
> independence of the celestial code is somewhat theoretical and has
> never really been put to the test so if you have any questions, or
> give it a try and run into any issues please don't hesitate to contact
> me.
>

The internal code, calculating the celestial mechanics is currently still
pretty much intermixed in FlightGear. I am currently working on a new
approach, which should eventually result in a small library consisting of
time and celestial functions, usable as a stand alone lib.

Regards,
Durk

Re: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Durk Talsma wrote:
> 
> "Curtis L. Olson" wrote:
> 
> > Brad Colbert writes:
> > > The link seems to work for me.  It does end in .htm vs. .html.  That
> > > does tend to cause a transcription error.
> >
> > Maybe they are suffering from the dreaded "plib-dot effect". :-)
> >
> > > I've poked around in FlightGear early on but have not kept tabs on
> > > it's current state.  (I was poking around with the celestial code trying
> > > to see how hard it was to port to other systems)
> > >
> > > There are some interesting demos that come with the
> > > source.  Let me know if you still have problems.
> >
> > Brad,
> >
> > The flightgear sun/moon/star/planet code has been all ssg-ified and
> > separated out.  The goal was to create something that could be easily
> > dropped into other ssg-based projects.  (I still have one issue with
> > the moon rendering as I just recently posted, but hopefully Steve or
> > someone else can provide some insight on that front.)  This
> > independence of the celestial code is somewhat theoretical and has
> > never really been put to the test so if you have any questions, or
> > give it a try and run into any issues please don't hesitate to contact
> > me.
> >
> 
> The internal code, calculating the celestial mechanics is currently still
> pretty much intermixed in FlightGear. I am currently working on a new
> approach, which should eventually result in a small library consisting of
> time and celestial functions, usable as a stand alone lib.

This would truly be a great thing to have.  So many OpenSource 3D
projects (mine included) simply clear the screen to 0,255,255, and
having a simple (couple of line) API to put up nice skies would be
a WONDERFUL addition.

Perhaps at first, we don't need the fancy time and celestial functions.
A simple four way MORNING/NOON/SUNSET/NIGHT option hardwired at (say)
45 degrees latitude would be plenty for 90% of applications.  You could
add in the fancy celestial stuff later.

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjb...@ai... (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sj...@ht...      (work)

Re: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Durk T. <d.t...@ch...>]

Steve Baker wrote:

> >
> > The internal code, calculating the celestial mechanics is currently still
> > pretty much intermixed in FlightGear. I am currently working on a new
> > approach, which should eventually result in a small library consisting of
> > time and celestial functions, usable as a stand alone lib.
>
> This would truly be a great thing to have.  So many OpenSource 3D
> projects (mine included) simply clear the screen to 0,255,255, and
> having a simple (couple of line) API to put up nice skies would be
> a WONDERFUL addition.
>

Thanks. I'd like to stress, however, that since I'm devoting an extremely limited
amount of time on programming and open source projects this year, it might
actually take another few months before there's something useful. (Even though
the design isn't that complicated).

>
> Perhaps at first, we don't need the fancy time and celestial functions.
> A simple four way MORNING/NOON/SUNSET/NIGHT option hardwired at (say)
> 45 degrees latitude would be plenty for 90% of applications.  You could
> add in the fancy celestial stuff later.

Hmm, yes, but I'm sure that with FlightGear, we wouldn't really like to go back
to a more basic setup, so with the usability for FlightGear in mind, I'd like to
capture the entire funtionality we currrently have. It might be a good idea to
add a few wrapper classes that allow an easy setup of a sky and star dome.

Functionality more complex than what is currently found in FlightGear, such as
needed for spaceflight simulations, is currently beyond my own design goals. At
the moment, I'd lacking both time and knowledge to do this. For the latter, I'm
convinced that a separate set of functions would be the best way to go.

Regards,
Durk

Re: [Plib-devel] TerraPage

[Steve B. <sjb...@ai...>]

Brad Colbert wrote:
> 
> Hey folks,
> 
> Is anyone looking into "porting" TerreX's Terrapage terrain paging code
> over to PLIB?

Not that I'm aware of.  Curt has been looking at this issue
from the reverse direction which is to extract the existing
(working) large area pager from within FlightGear and to turn
that into a separate stand-alone library.  That project is called
'TerraGear' (no relation to TerraPage) - and is (IIRC) currently
on SourceForge.

> I was thinking that it would blow some peoples minds to see large area
> terrain paging on a free scene-graph.

Really?   It's been done several times before...those people must have
easily blown minds.   :-)
 
> Their source is free (within bounds) and all it needs is the layer between
> the paging/memory management to the SSG.

I'll read up all about it.
Thanks for the info.

> http://www.terrex.com/terrapage.htm

-- 
Steve Baker                  http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjb...@ai... (home)  http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sj...@ht...      (work)