From: Kejian Jin (kjin++at++ats.ucla.edu)
Date: 04/07/2004 14:31:01
Hi,
vrNav is VR application developped based on vrjuggler 2.0 and
OpenGL Performer. It works in Linux, IRIX, Microsoft Windows.
Today, We announce a major release for vrNav.
You can download this software from: http://www.ats.ucla.edu/at/vrNav
This software is released under GNU licence.
The following are the highlights:
You can now do collaborative VR using vrNav across multiple platform.
Imagine you can control the navigation on the Irix machine using a Windows
PC or Linux. Imagine you can show your model across the country in
collaborative way!
You can now also run vrNav in
Orad Cluster
VR Cluster (Tiled display)
- Using ClusterJuggler or
- Using Simple Network Protocol (Master/Slave Protocol)
Improved feature in Movie making. You can save left/right eye images
and later compose those images so that you can play passive stereo movie.
and more...
The following new features have been added to vrNav2-5.8:
- Collaborative VR
Two people or groups running vrNav2 at different locations can run it
collaboratively on the same model by taking the following steps:
- The first party starts vrNav2 as the master and notifies the
other
party that it is waiting.
- The second party then starts vrNav2 with the same model and same
model
configuration file. They both see the same view of the model.
- The first party then flys through the model, either with the
keyboard
or with a device. The slave vrNav2 flys through the model
following
the master.
- The people running the slave vrNav2 can take over as master
whenever
they want.
- Collaboration can continue with either party becoming master
alternately and at will.
- Collaboration is over when one side quits vrNav2.
- Benchmark
A benchmark can be run by running vrNav2 on a set path. vrNav2 will
start on the path automatically and quit when it is done so that it
can
be timed with the unix time command. It also writes out a benchmark
file giving the instantaneous frame rate and a running average.
- Additional Support for Tiled Displays
Previous releases of vrNav2 used vrJuggler's cluster-juggler feature
to
run a tiled display using a device to navigate through the model
space.
vrNav2-5.8 adds the ability to run a tiled display on a path and to
control vrNav2-5.8 on a tiled display from the keyboard/mouse.
- Support for Creating Movies from Scientific Data which has Multiple
Time Steps
vrNav2-5.8 can create movies in which you fly up or down in time. It
can create movies in which flying up or down in time is interspersed
between segments in which you fly in space.
- Recursive Path
You can choose to have vrNav2-5.8 include in the model all
subdirectories
of a directory you specify. No longer do you have to specify, in the
model config file, a complex path such as:
<FilePath>.:/home/here/mymodel:/home/here/mymodel/model:/home/here/mymodel/textures:/home/here/mymodel/subdir/model:/home/here/mymodel/subdir/textures</FilePath>
when all the directories specified are subdirectories of a single
directory. Just name the top level directory and vrNav2-5.8 will
find
all the rest.
<FilePath>.:/home/here/mymodel</FilePath>
This eliminates the need to specify complex file paths.
- Texture preloading
vrNav2-5.8 now preloads the textures, which is more efficient.
Bug Fixes in vrNav2-5.8
- vrNavUtil was broken in vrNav2-5.4. It is now fixed.
- Quitting in vrNav2-5.8 is streamlined and a memory leak that existed
before upon quitting is now gone.
- The problem of being to fat to navigate through a door with collision
detection turned on is now gone.
- Stair climing in drive mode is now smoother.
-- Regards,Kejian Jin ---------------------------- Academic Technology Services UCLA
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 07 2004 - 14:38:21 PDT