🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1jmom9INN7ld@fido.asd.sgi.com> hashimoto@sgi.com (Roy Hashimoto) writes:
>In article <1993Jan21.052834.29868@cc.gatech.edu> zundel@cc.gatech.edu (Eric Zundel Ayers) writes:
>>Is it possible that the renderer module for Explorer 2.0 will be 
>>substantially quicker than the current version? 
>
>Geometry transmission time from one module to another has been one focus of
>the 2.0 effort.  Performance has been improved in this area.  Actual rendering
>performance has also been improved for certain primitives and situations.
>Another source of inefficiency is the amount of memory that the Render module
>chews up; this has also been addressed.

I have just looked at a visualization done with AVS similar to some of the 
ones we have been working with Explorer.  AVS includes a slider to
control tessellation, and by adjusting this, we were able to watch
a molecule made up of around 200 spheres rotate nicely, with about
1/2 seconds between re-draws (Running on a DECstation 5000).  
Our visualizations haven't come close to that, using Explorer.
You would think that changing the complexity of spheres would make a 
drastic difference for transformations, but it doesn't seem to.  I added a 
dial on my module to change complexity, but I think it would be a handy 
addition (or at least as a decoration to) the the Renderer.

Of course, the AVS renderer is assuming that you want all of your
spheres to have the same complexity.  Although I haven't tried it myself, 
I suppose Explorer would allow many spheres with different levels 
of complexity which might come in handy to someone.

>>The pick-box is nice,
>>but we'd like to get information about the original geometry from the
>>renderer, such as  "spheres 34, 35, and 36 are in the selection set"
>>and then, say,  perform an operation that makes those spheres transparent.
>
>The 2.0 beta contains a new picking scheme for Render that should provide
>you with the information you want.  You can label objects in your module
>and have those labels returned to you in the pick information.
>
>Roy Hashimoto
>hashimoto@sgi.com

This sounds like just what we need, (if it doesn't cost us in performance!)

Someone suggested that we would need faster hardware for better
performance in rendering spheres.  Is the DEC station hardware
really faster than SGI hardware?

Thanks for the info!
Eric.
Eric Z. Ayers
zundel@cc.gatech.edu
Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center (GVU)
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30213 USA