🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Oct12.040326.76442@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> ns111310@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Nate Sammons) writes:
>Well,
>
>If you are looking for a sneaky way to do this on a low level,
>the lowest I can think of is manipulating the RIB file directly,
>and bypassing the 3DKit.  As I assume you know, RIB files are just
>text... so it is a simple matter to get at them... I don't want to
>make it sound too simple, but writing a program to parse a text
>file and convert the wanted parts should not be that hard.
>
>'hope this helps.
>
>-nate
> ns111310@longs.lance.colostate.edu



Actually this is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.  Tesselating
surfaces given the surface paramtrization only is a huge and difficult
job, especially when you're dealing with NURB patches, Constructive
Solid Geometry objects, and so on.  Try writing a program that
dumps the subtraction of a cylinger from a sphere as a surface of
polygons and you'll see what I mean.  However, the 3Dkit does this
all automatically so I want to get at its results.  In addition,
the 3Dkit knows how to maintain object hierarchies, keep track
of surfaces associated with those objects, and so on.  I _don't_
want to reinvent this wheel!

Anyway, thanks for trying to help.  Anyone have any other ideas?

Shane