[GRASS-dev] NVIZ X11 Interface

[Glynn Clements]

Jeshua Lacock wrote:

> I just built 6.4.0 RC4 here on Mac OS X without a single error - nice!  
> The new interface is very snappy, stable and responsive compared to  
> 6.3.0 - I am nothing but impressed. Nice work everyone!
> 
> I just spoke with an Apple representative who was interested in  
> showing GRASS GIS on stage for at this years WWDC (World Wide  
> Developers Conference) in June to show a real time data 3D  
> visualization.
> 
> When I informed him that the 3D visualization still required X11 he  
> quickly lost interest. This would have been huge opportunity for world  
> wide exposure to GRASS GIS.
> 
> Are there any plans to make a Python or Cocoa interface for NVIZ going  
> forward? Is it possibly part of the GRASS 7 roadmap?
> 
> I have been doing a lot of OpenGL programming for Mac OS X lately, so  
> it might be something I could help with. Seems like the OpenGL code  
> works fine, I would just have to port the interface. Any comments?

Note that the Tcl/Tk version of NVIZ has all of the code needed to run
natively on MacOSX. You need to build with --with-opengl=osx, and also
ensure that the Tk version which it finds is a native version.

I'm fairly sure that it has worked (to an extent) in the past, but
none of the GRASS developers with a Mac seem particularly interested
in maintaining it.

I think that you may need to use Tk 8.4, as the MacOSX version of Togl
seems to have problems with 8.5 (this is second-hand and from memory).

Search the grass-dev archives for NVIZ, Togl, Mac, OSX for more
details.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>