Re: Performer at ITEC

New Message Reply Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

Tom Flynn (flynnt++at++perdy.mdcorp.ksc.nasa.gov)
Tue, 28 Apr 1998 17:39:37 -0400


On Apr 23, 8:39am, Steve Baker wrote:
> Subject: Re: Performer at ITEC
> On Thu, 23 Apr 1998, Brian Corrie wrote:
>
> > We were hoping to see an initial
> > release of OpenGL++ in the next couple of months, but according to the
OpenGL
> > ARB meeting minutes from March 9-10
> >
> > (http://www.opengl.org/ARB/Notes/Meeting1.2/meeting_note_10-03-98.html)
> >
> > Kurt Akeley (at least so the minutes say, I wasn't there...) says that "SGI
> > will no longer be able to push OpenGL++ (though they have no objection to
> > others picking up the work). Resources are committed to work with Microsoft
> > and HP on the scene graph and large model visualization APIs." Does this
mean
> > that we will be waiting for the Fahrenheit scene graph as opposed to
OpenGL++?
>
> I wonder if anyone would be interested in a cooperative 'freeware' Mesa++ (ie
> an OpenGL++ implemented on top of Mesa and provided under the same licensing
> conditions)?

How about an open-source (freeware if you insist on calling it that)
implementation of Performer. This _is_ the Performer mailing list afterall :).
 An open implementation of Performer that's portable to other POSIX complient
operating systems. That way when managers demand that their engineers port to
the PC, engineers can just re-compile rather than do the absolute complete
re-write of application code that would be necessary to port to Windows NT.
 It's also a more attractive short-term path than re-writing the graphics
portion of the code to Fahrenheit then later re-writing the rest of the
application to run under Windows NT. Rather than re-writing twice, you just
re-compile once. And since this would be an open-source solution, someone to
go ahead and make a port of it to Windows NT. This could be a solution until
and perhaps even after Fahrenheit implementations are available 1-2yrs from now
or whenever it is supposed to be out.

Now a quick question about Fahrenheit: will Fahrenheit be open,
system-independant and governed by an ARB consisting of industry leaders the
way OpenGL is? There is a definate need for an open, system-independant,
industry-wide scene graph API that has the same goals of Performer.

Well, that's just some food for thought. I've gotta go now. Take note that
this email reflects my opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
The Boeing Company. (etc. etc. etc. and any other legal disclaimers you can
think of).

later,
tom

=======================================================================
List Archives, FAQ, FTP: http://www.sgi.com/Technology/Performer/
            Submissions: info-performer++at++sgi.com
        Admin. requests: info-performer-request++at++sgi.com


New Message Reply Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Mon Aug 10 1998 - 17:57:19 PDT

This message has been cleansed for anti-spam protection. Replace '++at++' in any mail addresses with the '@' symbol.