From: owner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu on behalf of John Kelso [kelso@vt.edu] Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 10:28 AM To: John Kelso Hi all, The DIVERSE team at Virginia Tech is pleased to announce the release of version 1.0.0 of dgiPf, the DIVERSE graphics interface for Performer, a free, open-source (GNU LGPL) software API, available for download. Both source and binary distributions are available. dgiPf provides a framework to implement 3D Virtual Environment applications on a wide variety of hardware configurations. It's designed without the "center of the universe" paradigm; you only use the parts that you need, without being forced into using a particular design for your code, or having to add unneeded features. dgiPf augments the Performer API with additional functionality, which facilitates the porting of existing Performer applications. dgiPf is written in C++, and runs on SGI IRIX and GNU/Linux. Over 20 small example programs are included in the distribution. dgiPf provides: - abstractions of hardware input devices and graphic displays, providing a consistent programming interface. Using dgiPf the same program can be run on everything from a CAVE(tm) to a desktop workstation without modification. - automatic generation of both symmetric and asymmetric stereo viewing frusta, either based on the position of a locator device, such as a head tracker or computed positional data, or in the symmetric case, a user-defined convergence value. - arbitrary number, size and orientation of graphic display windows. - real support for both immersive and non-immersive environments. Desktop systems do not need to use a simulated head and wand to interact with the virtual world, but can use more appropriate and natural navigation styles. - support for both polled and queued input from any source. Queued devices automatically record all device data, allowing for easy construction of multi-device interaction techniques. dgiPf uses the DIVERSE ToolKit (DTK), a related but separate standalone package, to provide access to local and networked interaction devices and data. - load compiled files, in the form of Dynamically Shared Objects (DSOs), which can describe the graphic display and input device hardware, or any other code. - access data from input devices, local or remote, actual or simulated, using DTK's "remote shared memory" facility. - allow "hot-swapping" of input devices by reloading dtk-server DSOs. For more information, including currently supported hardware platforms and devices, please visit our web site at www.diverse.vt.edu/dgiPf, or send email to diverse@vt.edu. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Thanks, The DIVERSE team at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA Lance Arsenault John Kelso Ron Kriz Chris Logie Fernando das Neves Sanjiv Parikh Chad Wingrave