Andy Bushnell (giraffe.asd.sgi.com!sgi.sgi.com!portal.unix.portal.com!portal!gandalf.coryphaeusAndy Bushnell)
Tue, 2 Aug 1994 13:08:09 -0700
> More on this lightpoints issue of mine...
>
> Assuming that Performer can be "rigged" to handle the display of
> "realistic" lightpoints or that a future (near future???) version of
> Performer can handle them itself... I've got a few database
> modelling queries... Multigen v.14 doesn't seem to support the notion
> of giving lightpoints any size and/or power attributes... Does
> anybody know if:
>
> i) Yes this is true.
>
> ii) No this isn't true.. you do it like this...
>
> iii) No Multigen doesn't do it.. but XYZ modeller does...
>
> iv) This is actually an important issue? i.e. is it important
> to know the individual sizes/power of individual
> lightpoints or groups of lightpoints...
>
> Has anybody done any work or research in this area at all? I'd like
> to hear about any sucess or failure stories at all. (Modelling and/or
> rendering)
>
> Once again.. much thanks for any and all assistance rendered..
>
>
>
> +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
> Simon Bennett simonb++at++wormald.com.au
> Wormald Technology Advanced Systems Engineering Ph: +61 2 981 0611
(x512)
>
Let me try and answer your questions without appearing to be ..tooooo.. biased.
First of all I should point out (if you didn't know allready) that our
company (Coryphaeus Software Inc) is kinduv in competition with MultiGen(r).
1. Im not altogether sure about this one (having never even seen v14) *but*
our 3D Vis-Sim modeler (Designer's Workbench - DWB) *does* support light
point size and many other light point/light string attributes. (more below).
2. With the risk of appearing cheeky I'd offer the solution that DWB is how you
do it !!
3. Ah ha, now for the juicy bit ! DWB fully supports the following light point
features & attributes...
o Light point directionality can be set OMNI, UNI or BI-DIRECTIONAL.
o Light points/strings can be assigned overall/front or back colors
(depending on the light directionality).
o Light point type flag can be set (one of Runway,Taxiway,City,VASI,
Centerline etc etc).
o Light point shape hint flag can be set (straight,curved,random etc)
o Light point size (in pixels) can be set.
o Light Point real-world size (light point diameter). This is used by
DWB to automatically build polygonal lights that could be used
under a Switch Node (LOD) to switch them in at near distances.
o Light beam with & height for UNI-DIRECTIONAL lights can be set.
o Intensity & Intensity variance along a light string can be set.
o Calligraphic priority (0->1) indicates the relative importance of
different light strings. Calligraphic lights are (usually) a limited
resource so this field indicates the most important ones.
o The direction vector can be viewed & manipulated.
o A "suppress last light" flag is available that indicates that the
end of string #1 is also the start point of string #2.
4.This is really based on the desired fidelity of the end-simulation. I would
think that size of light points is important so that the overall "weighting"
of the different light strings when compared to each other can be guaged.
Currently different "power" levels could be frigged in Performer by setting
different Light point size values in DWB.
In addition to the attributes listed above DWB has 9 tools to lay down
straight,curved or random light points/strings.
DWB has its own *PUBLIC DOMAIN* binary format for which a Performer loader is
available and provided in source. The subset of DWB's light point attributes
that Performer supports (in its pfLightPoint Node) are all fully supported
in our loader.
If you want more info on DWB, our Performer support or our other Visual
Simulation products (terrain,IG tools) please dont hesitate to contact me.
Andy Bushnell,
Director of Engineering,
Coryphaeus Software Inc,
985 University Av. Suite#31,
Los Gatos,
CA 95030
Tel : 408 395 4537
Email : ab++at++cory.coryphaeus.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Aug 10 1998 - 17:50:26 PDT