[GRASS5] nviz development

[Bob Covill]

Gordon,

Yes, there is a version currently being tested that saves and reads key
frame files. I passed it over to Markus, and Helena last week for
testing and comments. If interested I could forward a version to you to
try.

There are a number of other changes I have made. Below is the original
list ...


1. Update for the keyframe animation panel that correctly saves and
loads an animation to file. Currently the keyframe positons are not
saved. This change will allow users to save and reload animations.

2. Update keyframe library to allow center of view to change and be
saved in DIR[XYZ] portion of the keyframe mask. This allows
animations to move through a terrain as opposed to around a fixed point.

3. Added a new routine Nprintkey that will print out the keyframe
mask in a format compatible for editing in the keyframe animation panel. 

4. I have added accelerated surface drawing routine to draw only the
data in the current viewport (screen). All data is currently drawn
whether on the screen or not. I have only added this for float type
maps so far. 

5. I have changed the near and far clip defaults to 0.5 -> 100000.
This range was smaller which clipped views outside.

6. Fixed the routine for setting the camera (eye) position. The
function Nmoveto_real takes real coordinates as arguments. The
Nset_focus
command set the center of view.

7. I have finally got off-screen rendering working using pbuffers.
This past week I was able to get an off-screen rendering context working
that was undisturbed by other screens, etc. The context uses pbuffers
which are hardware accelerated (supposedly). This is one of the features
that will probably have bugs but has great potential. For example the
max. size image which is currently drawn in pieces could be drawn off
screen as a single image. The down side of this is that pbuffers will
not be supported in older versions of opengl.

8. Finally I have written a program (based on r.profile) that
constructs a TCL script that can be run in NVIZ. The script is
constructed outside of nviz where the user selects a route, set the
camera height and layback and generates the script. I added an option
this week that will generate a key mask file (see item 3) that can then
be opened (and editted) in keyframe animation panel.

-- 
Bob Covill

Tekmap Consulting
P.O. Box 2016
Fall River, N.S.
B2T 1K6
Canada

E-Mail: bcovill at tekmap.ns.ca
Phone: 902-860-1496
Fax: 902-860-1498