Re: [Update REQ 5191]: 2+ cameras and producing a postscript file

["Daeron Meyer" <daeron>]

Hi John,

   First of all, which version of Geomview were you using? To find out
what version you have, select Credits from the Inspect Panel. The version
number should be at the top of the window that pops up. The most recent
version that we are distributing is 1.5. In response to your report:

> 1)After opening a second camera on an object, the operaions
> to rotate, translate, fly or orbit all translated the object.
> Scaling didn't do anything but zoom worked normally.
> 
> Deleting the second window still left the problem in the original


I have tried to duplicate this behavior but was not successful. Could
you please provide a more specific list of actions. i.e. did you create
the camera by selecting "New Camera" from the pull down menu or by using
the "v+" key shortcut? Were you trying to switch modes by clicking on
the tool bar or by typing key shortcuts into the camera windows (t=translate,
r=rotate, etc...)?

One thing that might have caused the apparent behavior is if you were trying
to use keyboard shortcuts to change modes when neither of the camera windows
had keyboard focus. This depends a lot on the window manager you use and
how it is configured. For instance, under OpenLook, you must click on a
camera window's title bar to give that camera keyboard focus, before you can
type into it.

If neither of your camera windows had keyboard focus and you were trying to
use keyboard shortcuts then it would have appeard to stick in whatever mode
you were already in (in your case, translation).

> 2)Also I produced an object that is a LIST of polyhedra (type OFF).
> There are about 2,000 of these polyhedra.
> The combination of all the polyhedra produces the larger 3d object that
> I am interested in.
> 
> After getting the object on the screen and rotating it, 
> I want to produce a postscript file of it.
> But the PS Snapshot module produced the following error.

Again, it would have been helpful to know what release of Geomview you
were using. This bug may already have been fixed. Could you perhaps
email me a copy of the file you were trying to postscriptify?

> Is there anything that you can recommend that I should try?
> e.g. is there a better way of decribing a large number of 
> polyhedrons than as a LIST of objects of type OFF?

The LIST geom is exactly what you should be using for combining
many polyhedrons into one object. It provides some hierarchy (i.e.
LISTs of LISTs), as opposed to just making one huge OFF file thatx
 contains all your polygons. It's unfortunate that pssnap was unable
to handle it because of some internal bug.

> I then tried rotating the object around and repeating the
> procedure and this time it worked but was VERY slow in producing
> the postscript file (using PS Snapshot).
> (The .OFF file is 662518 bytes in size)

So your saying it didn't work the first time, but after rotating the object
around and trying again, it DID work? Hmmm... this is very strange.
Hopefully we can fix this problem. It would be helpful if you could get
back to us as soon as possible with the clarifying info we've requested.

Thank you!

Daeron Meyer
daeron at geom.umn.edu