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triple_r wrote:
> Jim Charter <jrc### [at] msn com> 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.
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