triple_r wrote:
> Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msncom> wrote:
> 
>>On a whim I spent just a little time poking around with Google to
>>investigate how difficult it would be to set up a virtual space with a
>>viewpoint that can be zoomed, dollyed, and panned. This could be in a
>>browser or in a separate viewer. At first blush it seems that panning
>>the camera or rotating an object is easy, also zoom, but dollying the
>>camera not so?  Is this true?  Does this function present a particlar
>>hurtle that panning and zooming doesn't?  Google maps does it.  Does the
>>difficulty increase linearly or exponentially?
> 
> 
> 
> As a disclaimer, I could be totally out in left field here.  Are you looking for
> an 3D API?  I'm not sure if it's headed in the right direction, but I use GLUT
> for this type of thing.  It's avery simple and completely cross-platform
> wrapper for OpenGL so you don't have to worry about all the platform-dependent
> details.  The OpenGL tutorials at http://nehe.gamedev.net/ are more than enough
> to get started.  If you want something web-browser-oriented then I can't help
> you, but the intended use here is for simple games and interactive simulations.
>  I've been looking at FLTK (http://www.fltk.org/) to add more of an interface
> along with the OpenGL stuff, but that's not really off the ground yet.
> 
> Here's a couple examples:
> 
> http://rsreusser.googlepages.com/glutApp2.tar.gz
> http://rsreusser.googlepages.com/nurbs3d.tar.gz
> http://rsreusser.googlepages.com/fluid.tar.gz
> 
> The first just draws a rectangle where you can pan and zoom in two dimensions.
> The second is the 3D equivalent, with a NURBS curve editor.  With some simple
> projection math, you can select points, zoom, pan, and rotate.  And the last
> one, just for fun, is a simple fluid simulation.  Click and drag!
> 
> I'm not sure if this is what you have in mind, but it met my needs very well for
> a similar task.  You just define a location for the camera, as in POV-Ray, and
> use mouse and keyboard functions to set up the interaction.  It's not something
> you'd program Google Earth in, but it's a good start for the rest of us.
> 
> Hope this could be of any use.
> 
>  - Ricky
> 
Yes thanks, there's good stuff there.  To be honest I am not sure what 
the direction is either.  That is part of what I am trying to figure 
out.  My suspicion is that 'browser-oriented' is what I will need in the 
end but in order to try and understand the larger context I am willing 
to start anywhere.

Post a reply to this message