#Cyberspace Ships
12 messages in this thread
Anil,
Allthough I am not a part of Autodesk, I emailed you a speech given by Randal
Walser [adesk] entitled "A De Facto Anti-Standard For Cyberspace." This paper
deals with Autodesk's reasoning for the development kit approach to VR. The
'Trix' programming language refered to in the paper is not a part of the CDK,
as far as I know, but CDK may be a mutation of it.
I personaly feel that Autodesk's approach was the right idea. The VR field
is filled with non-connected elements: People making high-tech hardware, firms
setting up $$$ custom systems, and homebrew VRists wrangling amazing results
out of inexpensive hardware and public domain code. IMHO, Autodesk's entry
into the market will serve to tie together all of those elements, providing
high-power code for developers to form into useable systems.
In the near future, I think you will start to see some very nice VR programs
produced by the CDK coming out for people such as youself to use. I don't have
too much grasp of the business end of this, but I hold Randal Walser and Eric
Gullichsen (TM) <g> in the highest regards for getting the ball rolling on the
VR industry.
-Jason Kirtland
Hello, Don Hanson here. I noticed the discussion on CDK from AutoDesk. My
work was just authorized to carry CDK and I'm excited to get a chance to work
with it. (enjoy? well yes, I'm obviously not in sales) The main competition,
to me, would seem to be Sense8's World Tool Kit. Do you know anything about
it? My poor information sources indicate that the new CDK is a modernization
of necessary functions of virtual reality programming. Sense8's product
appears to be a higher level language? Is this correct?
I'm sorry to butt in, but … what do you do in this arena?
Don Hanson, 71344,2201
Check out John Morrison's note: A much better description than I could have
given. <g>
I'm just an avid 3D Studio user and student… finishing my thesis this
semester (about two dozen still images done w/ 3DS) and then _moving to
California!!_ When most messages get answered with "why don't you come to the
VR/3DS/Comp. Art conferance in [spanish name], California?," you get the
picture pretty quick. 🙂
-Jason Kirtland
Jason:
>> When most messages get answered with "why don't you come to the
>> VR/3DS/Comp. Art conferance in [spanish name], California?," you get the
>> picture pretty quick. 🙂
FYI, Anaheim is German… <big g>
Greg (the Greek) Pyros
Hey guys,
Saw your conversation and thought I would add my two cents worth. WTK and CDK
are both class library VR programs. WTK is compiled from Borland C++ and CDK
(at least in alpha and beta, and I expect in final release) is compiled from
Zortec. There is also an option in CDK to use MetaWare compiler. Neither
softwares are proprietary languages or compilers.
From the stand of a novice user, both softwares require a progamming background
(preferably OOPs – Object Oriented Programming) in order to facilitate and link
environments and attributes. In this sense, they are both high level
applications.
There are many different VR softwares out there and depending on level of
knowledge, complexity of programming, level of immersion, hardware
requirements, and required end results, some or all many not be applicable.
There are several other areas on CompuServe and InterNET that deal with VR and
all the other software and ahrdware issues.
CDK will not have employed TRIX. Randy is no longer with Autodesk and when I
last spoke with him he indicated to me that he intends carrying this project
with him.
Hope this info was useful.
John Morrison
CAD Institute
4100 E. Broadway – Suite 180
Phoenix, Az 85040
(602) 437-0405
Jason – Could you email me a copy of the speech ? It's probably in some dusty
archive here in Sausalito, but if you've got an electronic copy handy, it would
save me some footwork trying to find it. Thanks.
Jeffery,
Randy's speech "A De Facto Anti-Standard For Cyberspace", is online in
GRAPHDEV Lib 10 (VR Concepts) as TRIX.TXT. So, yet another reason to go
browsing over in the VR libs there <g>.
Jerry
Thanks, Jerry. I'll go grab it.
Jason,
Randy's speech "A De Facto Anti-Standard For Cyberspace." is over in GraphDev
Lib 10 as TRIX.TXT. I'm a big fan of using such a Threaded Interp. Lang. for VR
as it would provide, the higher level 'world' programming, interpretive lang
benifits and easy extensibility of TILs. I've been in contact with Randy about
TRIX and also Autodesk. It seems that CDK does not contain any part of TRIX and
that Randy now has full rights to TRIX. ADesk has some sort of an agreement to
get royalty free (or such) versions of TRIX when/if it gets released as a
commercial product. Randy had talked about a Public Domain or Freeware version
of TRIX, but i havent been able to confirm that with him lately.
Randy is scheduled to be a speaker at the Meckler '93 VR conference in San
Jose. He will be one of the lecturers for a "Dynamic Agents in VR" tutorial on
Wed May 19.
Jerry Isdale
Hi Jerry,
Sorry about that bum lead on the cyberspace thread here… (a few weeks back)
There were a few messages, but nothing developed from them.
Do you know of any electronic copy of John Walker's paper "Through the
Looking Glass: Beyond 'User Interfaces'"? I frequent Graphics Developers
pretty often but haven't seen a copy lurking there.
It's good to see the king of graphdev around here! Welcome aboard! 🙂
-Jason Kirtland
Jason,
I havent seen John Walker's paper anywhere electronic. I think it was included
in one of the VR anthology books, either "Cyberspace: First Steps" or one of
the Meckler books. I have looked for it out on the Internet but without
success. I'm due for another round of grazing out there this weekend, maybe
i'll get lucky <g>.
I also have some other articles that Randy Walser sent me on TRIX a while
back. Most of them are generic VR papers, which i seem to recall on the Inet.
I'll look for them this weekend too.
re: "king of graphdev"
more like the court fool <g>. I'm really only active in the VR sections. I
dont have time for fractals or raytracing these days 8-(. Although i did pick
up 3D Studio recently so i can have a decent modeling tool, until i build my
own <g>.
Jerry
Jason,
thanx for the file you emailed. It got cut off, so I'll have to download the
file, but I appreciate your sending it to me.
IMHO, I think you contradicted yourself there. As you say, the field is
fragmented, there is no reason to make it more so by introducing a set of tools
to create multiple software packages. Packages that as users and consultants,
we have no way of benchmarking. If Autodesk put out a product, I would be sure
that it worked and other than possible minor bugs it would be usable and
perhaps even become an industry standard. That is what I am intersted in – a
real and workable solution, not some hacked together code based on a toolkit.
Oh well, I guess I am going to with Sense8 or one of those "other" guys. AS
far as VR is considered, it's so long Autodesk.
Thanx for taking the time, to express your ideas.
Anil