Brian Corrie (bcorrie++at++cs.anu.edu.au)
Wed, 29 Apr 1998 09:01:16 +1000
Sharon says:
>The most detailed we ever got was in summer '97 hoping for a Beta in
>summer '98. As we mentioned then, that was a very tentative outlook
>because we were (and are) talking about a 1.0 type of release here.
>The schedule at this point probably is not all that different than it
>otherwise would have been. As announced at the Fahrenheit launch, we
>are trying for a released product mid-98. ...
I assume you mean mid-99 here...
Andrew says:
>As one of the development partners of Fahrenheit we at HP we feel that
>we should chime in on these discussions. There have been many questions
>flying around and Angus and Sharon have done a great job answering them.
>We want to just add a few points.
>
>Sharon writes in her very concise summary of the OGL++ questions and
>comments,
>
>"In truth, I don't think that last Dec. spec would provide much
>insight for folks that have seen Performer and Inventor beyond
>reassuring folks that we are still doing a Scene Graph. Since the
>goal here is a pervasive standard, I'd hope that folks would use
>Fahrenheit and not try to start up a separate effort now on something
>old. SGI will only participate in one effort and honestly believe
>what we have created with Fahrenheit is the right thing, both for ISV
>and IHVs that want to be able to differentiate on top of and
>underneath a ubiquitous API. I don't think multiple efforts is going
>to help anyone at this point."
>
>We would like to reaffirm this point. Microsoft, SGI and HP are working
>hard to bring all of you a ubiquitous API. Fahrenheit is a toolkit that
>goes beyond the scope of any yet produced. This is a toolkit that
>reaches from the low-level APIs up to Scene Graph management and
>optimization. There is also ability for ISVs and IHVs to extend and
>enhance the toolkit; something new that will definitely move the
>industry forward. HP too will only participate in one effort and
>Fahrenheit is that effort. When the higher level components of
>Fahrenheit are released later this year on HP-UX, IRIX and MS Windows
>platforms application developers will have a great toolkit to work with
>on the worlds leading graphics platforms..
Unless I am mistaken, I don't think that anyone is necessarily suggesting that
an alternative scene graph API be implemented. I would assume that any Mesa
like scene graph implementation (lets call it Celsius or Centigrade for
obvious reasons 8-) would initially be based on an OpenGL++ spec because that
is all we have that is "close" to what FSG might look like in the future. I
would hope that as Celsius Scene Graph (CSG - hmmm, could cause confusion
here... I love acronyms 8-) matures and more information about FSG becomes
available CSG would try to approach FSG in functionality much like Mesa
implements OpenGL's functionality. Thus we would still have the ubiquitous API
but it would be available on a much wider range of platforms (Linux, Mac, BeOS
etc.). An admirable goal in my mind.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Cheers,
Brian
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