Chris Mitchell (mitchell++at++physics.ucla.edu)
Mon, 16 Mar 1998 14:37:07 -0800 (PST)
I was under the impression that performer was directly
developed from military flight simulation technology.
I'm writing a paper to a journal (Computers in Physics),
and I reference Performer. I thought it
would be nice to mention the connection between Performer
and military flight simulation in the paper, but if the
connection is too abstract, I'll omit it.
Chris Mitchell
UCLA Physics Department
LAPD Plasma Lab
310-206-1772
chrism++at++ucla.edu
> Performer is a library and API which can *help* turn a
> workstation into a simulator visual, some of the methods are
> common to other simulator visuals, and the library is used by
> developers who build real military flight simulators. Most
> parts of Performer are dedicated to making workstation class
> hardware draw quickly and flight simulation is just one of
> its targeted or adopted markets. There are a few aspects of
> the library which could really be considered dedicated to
> flight simulation and usefull for simulation. For example
> calligraphic light capability (which work with the multisampled
> zbuffer), although this is actually a civil flight requirement
> for FAA level D certification it could be used in maritime
> ships bridge simulators or military flight but tends not to be
> a requirement.
> CLIP map texturing is also usefull for military flight allowing
> full mission training over huge detailed geospecific databases
> but this is also an extremely general purpose technique and finds
> application in non military simulations and applications, but it
> is unique to SGI workstations and Performer, it wasn't borrowed
> from military flight simulators.
>
> The statement you quote is reasonable but hardly representative,
> it sounds like a synopsis a journalist would invent. The
> graphics pipeline is also an important part of a simulation
> solution on SGI which probably has more in common with simulator
> heritage than the Performer API which IMHO is fairly original
> 'glue' which didn't exist in traditional simulator designs.
> Having said this SGI customers were adding that glue prior to
> Performer with varying degrees of success and Performer tries
> to help them and us by encapsulating some expert knowledge and
> reducing the SGI suport burden of trying to help everyone tune
> their code at an atomic level.
>
> Cheers,Angus.
>
> --
> "Only the mediocre are always at their best." -- Jean Giraudoux
>
> For advanced 3D graphics Performer + OpenGL based examples and tutors:
> http://www.dorbie.com/
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