Polyworlds

[Aubrey McIntosh]

There was once an application in S3 (ETH) Oberon named Polyworlds. I
can't find it now. It is missing from the distribution, and the web
links to the ftp site appear dead.

There are a few hits on Google, but don't appear to lead anywhere. (&
Guy Laden's site is gone, too.)

What can replace Polyworlds?
Does anyone have a source or binary copy?

[jmdrake]

Post by Aubrey McIntosh
There was once an application in S3 (ETH) Oberon named Polyworlds. I
can't find it now. It is missing from the distribution, and the web
links to the ftp site appear dead.
There are a few hits on Google, but don't appear to lead anywhere. (&
Guy Laden's site is gone, too.)
What can replace Polyworlds?
Does anyone have a source or binary copy?

The application "Dim 3" is the replacement for Polyworlds. It can display
Polyworld files faster (using BSP trees) and better (using Gourard shading).
Dim 3 is in all of the distributions I've seen. Unfortunately it still only
does static 3D worlds (no 3D animation). But it's a pretty neat program.

Regards,

John M. Drake

[Aubrey McIntosh]

Post by jmdrake
The application "Dim 3" is the replacement for Polyworlds. It can display
Polyworld files faster (using BSP trees) and better (using Gourard shading).
Dim 3 is in all of the distributions I've seen. Unfortunately it still only
does static 3D worlds (no 3D animation). But it's a pretty neat program.

I have used Dim3 to sketch out a concept of a house.

http://www.jump.net/~vima/ethoberon/House_1_13.poly

[jmdrake]

Post by Aubrey McIntosh

Post by jmdrake
The application "Dim 3" is the replacement for Polyworlds. It can display
Polyworld files faster (using BSP trees) and better (using Gourard shading).
Dim 3 is in all of the distributions I've seen. Unfortunately it still only
does static 3D worlds (no 3D animation). But it's a pretty neat program.

I have used Dim3 to sketch out a concept of a house.
http://www.jump.net/~vima/ethoberon/House_1_13.poly

Thanks Aubrey! It's always good to see people actually USING Oberon apps.
One note, I think I've found a bug in Dim 3. At least on my machine when
I get the following endless loop when I try to load your figure:

(line#): unexpected symbol (keyword expected)

It seems that Dim3 chokes when you end a source file with a comment.
The last line in your file is:

#add Cloud

If I take that line out, or I put another line after that line it works.

Something else to consider. If the source code for "Polyworlds" is
still out there somewhere it might be usefull to look at for someone
considering making Dim3 dynamic. I believe that Polyworlds used a
"z-buffer" algorithm which is more suitible for dynamic scenes then
BSP. If BSP could be used for the static part of the scene and
z-buffer for the dynamic part you might have something. (I realize
this is years behind what's truly "state of the art" for 3D graphics).

Regards,

John M. Drake

[Aubrey McIntosh]

Post by jmdrake
Thanks Aubrey! It's always good to see people actually USING Oberon apps.
One note, I think I've found a bug in Dim 3. At least on my machine when

...

Post by jmdrake
If I take that line out, or I put another line after that line it works.

That's odd. It works on my machine. On the other hand, my V4
installation is wierd now that I have Win 2000: it won't exit after I
execute System.Quit, instead the window becomes "not responsive" but
no one else reports that behavior.

Post by jmdrake
Something else to consider. If the source code for "Polyworlds" is
still out there somewhere it might be usefull to look at for someone
considering making Dim3 dynamic. I believe that Polyworlds used a

I agree that the dynamic part would be nice. Go into the "Veranda"
production in my house and scale the cubes about 4-5 times larger than
they are now. They are then navigation beacons that you can select,
and the "Align" button will rotate to them, taking perhaps 15-20
seconds to "fly" through the scene. The "welcome" signs on the south
and east can also be used for navigation beacons, but in practice I
used the ones in "column" (I changed the code so that the dimension
numbers represent inches, and I did not update the beacons, so they
are all too tiny now. But it should be trivial to change that)

There is also another set of cubes that are navigation beacons.

I haven't looked at the code for Align, but I think it could be the
basis of a flight path. I envision setting a series of beacons and
flying from one to another, not because the user interface is good,
but because the code is probably mostly in place.

I designed a board for a PIC processor last year, and I found that the
work to lay out the house in Dim3 drew a lot on the experience. I
have looked at the Dim3 scanner and I think it would be possible to
mark a production with a "*" character, and have the scanner add it to
a "bill of material" I would use this, for example, to export a list
of all the 2X4 studs in the walls and have a list of the lumber that
is required.

As is the case so often, I feel that this project could be a
commercial product with a little more work, and I am suprised that
there aren't more entreprenural companies growing out of the ETH
graduates.