Re: [Closed REQ 5151]: Reading data into Geomview

["Daeron Meyer" <daeron>]

> 
> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 94 16:29:46 -0600
> From: slevy
> Message-Id: <9411162229.AA27664 at lobachevskii.geom.umn.edu>
> To: software
> Subject: [Reading data into Geomview]
> 
> >From Joshua_Fredericks at brown.edu Wed Nov 16 12:02:02 1994
> From: Joshua_Fredericks at brown.edu
> Date: Wed, 16 Nov 1994 13:02:56 -0500
> To: geomview-users at geom
> Subject: Reading data into Geomview
> 
> Hi,
>         I am a engineering student at Brown University working with a 
> graduate student on a project which involves using Geomview.  As part of the 
> project, we would like to be able to read a file containing a 3-dimensional 
> array of ones and zeros into Geomview.  In this file, the ones would 
> represent the edges of the shape.  Is there anyway that we could read this 
> file in or modify it to a format suitable for Geomview?  Thanks.
>         -Josh Fredericks
>          Joshua_Fredericks at brown.edu
> 
> 
> Originator: Joshua_Fredericks at brown.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 

Hi Josh,

   What you are trying to do is called volume rendering, something that Geomview,
unfortunately, is not very good at.  Geomview is optimized to do polygonal, line or dot
rendering which means you'd have to convert your volume data to an object built from say
cubes (where each cube is placed at the location of a "1") or alternatively convert
to a 3D array of dots and play connect-the-dots to see the edge you're talking about.

An alternative would be to use a program specifically designed to do volume rendering,
such as "Bob" available from the Army Research Center.

Check out the overview of "Bob" with your favorite web viewer by URLing over to:
http://www.arc.umn.edu/html/gvl-software/bob.html

The program runs only on SGI's and you'd better have a fast graphics board (like VGX)
or it will be extremely slow.  You can get the program via ftp from ftp.arc.umn.edu

Hope this helps. If you have any more questions feel free to write us again.

Daeron Meyer
daeron at geom.umn.edu