[PyOpenGL-Users] OpenGLContext 2.0 on the way, status update, requests?

[Mike C. F. <mcf...@ro...>]

I've spent the last few weeks working on OpenGLContext, and am getting 
to the point where an early 2.0 release is becoming visible somewhere on 
the horizon.  This message will serve as a heads-up regarding the new 
development work.  I'm also wondering if there are particular things 
that people would like to see in the package's next iteration.  I've 
been working primarily on the scene graph package (and a few new 
supporting packages)

Here's a quick summary of what's changed...

    * have moved to 2.2.x+ (the new stable Python version)
          o has significantly simplified the code base
          o have moved away from the mcf.vrml code base for providing
            VRML functionality, am using a much smaller custom-written
            vrml package (including a more robust parser).
          o nodes are now new-style Python objects with fields being
            property sub-classes
          o means that anyone using the package needs to upgrade to
            2.2.x (preferably 2.2.2), though the old version (1.0) will
            continue to be available for earlier Python versions.
    * have moved to a visitor pattern for all rendering traversals
          o means that the rendering algorithms tend to be localized in
            a single file, with only small bits of functionality added
            to the individual node-classes
    * have just completed the base work for a stencil-shadow-rendering
      pass-set and supporting objects
          o is basically functional, though there are a number of fairly
            common cases which need to be dealt with before it can be
            considered finished
    * have added support for more of the VRML97 background node
    * threaded image loading is working
    * the new scene graph implementation includes generic caching
      facilities (based on field-watchers, which are in turn based on
      the new field classes and the dispatcher module)
    * lights are now properly positioned within the scene graphs
    * switches are implemented
    * integrated node-path objects provide both forward and backward
      manual transformation-matrix calculations
    * there are display list and texture helper objects for managing
      resource life-cycles
    * there are a few new debugging tools
          o save the depth buffer or the stencil buffer to a PIL image
          o log OpenGL.GL commands to sys.stderr
          o helpers to track changes to OpenGL state

I'm probably still a few weeks away from a first 2.0 alpha release, so 
there is still time for feature requests.  Let me know what you want to 
see (within reason, I'm not looking to double the length of the project 
or anything).

Enjoy yourselves,
Mike

_______________________________________
  Mike C. Fletcher
  Designer, VR Plumber, Coder
  http://members.rogers.com/mcfletch/