From: Hugh Fisher (hugh.fisher++at++anu.edu.au)
Date: 07/08/2004 18:00:25
> From: John Kelso <kelso++at++nist.gov>
> Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 13:32:41 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: [info-performer] pfSprite vs. PfBillboard, again
>
> Hi,
>
> This is sort of a followup on Lawrence Lachman's question of 7/30/01.
>
> I want to display a large field of "atoms", represented by filled
> circles
> that always face the observer. I can't figure out if it's better to
> use
> sprites or billboards. The application will need to be able to run
> on
> both generic Linux boxes as well as our SGI Onyx.
>
> In general, and specifically for this type of application:
>
> When would you choose one instead of the other?
I wrote a molecular structure viewer in Performer that
displayed hundreds to thousands of atoms as large points.
Set the point size to something greater than 1, turn on
blending and smoothing, and you get very nice flat shaded
circles.
Major disadvantage is that there is no perspective effect
to make them smaller at a distance, but if you duck into
OpenGL and turn on point parameters you can have that too.
Hope this helps.
Hugh Fisher
DCS, Australian National University
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