IRC log for #brlcad on 20070920

00:08.10 *** join/#brlcad qazwsx (n=qazwsx@unaffiliated/adgj)
00:08.40 qazwsx given that I have a region/combination ... is there a way for me to tell brlcad to give me a watertight mesh?
00:08.46 qazwsx (this I assume is probably C interface land)
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00:35.02 ``Erik hum
00:49.56 starseeker it's doable, but will take time and patience
00:52.19 louipc what are you doing just adding the right tags here and there?
00:58.37 Maloeran Could anyone possibly know what could cause ftp transfer speed to slowly yet continuously drop on LAN transfers? I never figured that out
00:59.09 Maloeran It starts at 12mb/sec, and is now at 2mb/sec after just a hour, still falling
00:59.22 starseeker louipc: Pretty much
01:00.02 starseeker Once I get through vol2, I'll send it to brlcad, and if he OKs it I'll post it to the list for comment
01:00.17 louipc starseeker: ah ok. I'd try to rig up vim/emacs for hyper speed tag insertion
01:00.33 louipc cool
01:00.49 starseeker louipc: That's probably a good idea, but it will come after I've got a good sense of what to insert
01:00.58 louipc yeah
01:01.04 starseeker right now I'm working with the docbook site on one desktop and the document on another
01:01.14 starseeker and the pdf in the third to put the text in context
01:05.10 brlcad starseeker: there are a few docbook structures that would be well suited -- i'm not sure which is really best at this point, treating them as books, or collections of books, or collections of articles, etc .. there are various tradeoffs
01:05.30 starseeker brlcad: For the moment, I'm going with book
01:05.43 brlcad probably a book for starters, if the "chapters" are each stashed out into their own file(s) then it's a lot easier to change it later
01:05.52 starseeker Ah.
01:06.14 starseeker I'll probably start doing it in one file, then go back and separate it out later
01:06.42 brlcad using xml docbook and xpath, it's fairly straightforward to get sort of #include semantics -- otherwise you have to list things a few times (which isn't too horrible either)
01:07.02 brlcad yeah, just *having* it in docbook format is a starter
01:07.23 brlcad then it can be reorganized, updated, make stylesheets for various new formats, etc
01:07.37 starseeker book looks like a decent match so far.
01:07.55 starseeker when do you want me to send you an example of what I'm doing? after I finish one of the volumes?
01:07.56 brlcad go for it
01:08.20 brlcad erm, if you have an sf.net account, you can just work directly in cvs
01:08.30 starseeker Oh, OK.
01:08.34 brlcad then it'll be pretty obvious :)
01:08.35 starseeker I'm starseeker on sf, IIRC
01:09.00 starseeker Didn't know if you wanted me mucking around in cvs yet ;-)
01:09.17 brlcad it's cool
01:09.59 brlcad so long as the rate is low enough that I can review every commit (which I do), I'm pretty open to just letting new folks get involved
01:10.07 starseeker If I start now, it will basically be starting from the wvText output and gradually becoming actual xml
01:10.09 starseeker cool :-)
01:10.20 brlcad should read HACKING file in the top-level, has some basic guidelines
01:10.32 starseeker OK
01:10.41 brlcad like don't break code if you do go editing code, or do your best to not break the build even when adding new files, etc
01:11.18 starseeker right. Since I won't be touching code yet that's OK, and the build can't be set up for the docs until the docs are processable ;-)
01:11.56 brlcad yep
01:11.59 starseeker I take it the build will ignore files in doc it doesn't recognize?
01:12.15 brlcad and even once they are added, they'll probably be "opt-in" via some --enable-docs option at first
01:12.34 starseeker Right. Particularly if we rely on the external system to have a working docbook chain
01:12.38 starseeker that's quite an assumption
01:12.46 brlcad yeah, that's a slew of configure checks
01:13.17 brlcad you're added
01:13.28 brlcad presume you know how to checkout/use cvs?
01:13.53 starseeker Yep :-)
01:13.55 starseeker thanks!
01:14.08 starseeker where do you want me working? subdirectory in doc?
01:14.21 brlcad yeah, that's probably the place for now
01:15.00 brlcad doc/book perhaps :)
01:15.06 starseeker :-)
01:15.37 starseeker it would probably be better to have doc/book/vol2 - there will be a fair number of images involved by the end
01:17.30 brlcad hm, I was kind of hoping to get away from the "volumes"
01:17.38 brlcad they don't exactly make sense
01:17.48 starseeker Oh. OK, that's not a problem
01:18.17 starseeker How were you thinking to structure it? It's probably easier to set that up from the get-go
01:18.53 starseeker a "book.xml" file with chapters in their own files?
01:19.15 brlcad vol II is basically a bunch of tutorials that build on each other, plus a big command index, plus an 'article' on primitives, plus some other stuff; vol I and vol III are primarily informational though III also has more (moderately advanced) tutorials; IV tells you how to convert stuff ...
01:19.34 brlcad there's very little consistency imo to those groupings and a lot of crossover
01:20.07 brlcad sure, that works .. your call since you're the one doing the work :)
01:20.37 starseeker OK. If you like, we can adopt the convention of the "book.xml" file being the control file and putting individual "tutorials"/articles/etc in their own files. My main concern is not to pollute with a bunch of files that will eventually need to vanish, since that's a pain in cvs...
01:20.42 brlcad i'll whine if I see something I really don't like :)
01:20.45 starseeker hehe
01:21.13 brlcad don't worry about cvs .. it is afterall going to be gone by end of year :)
01:21.44 starseeker True :-)
01:23.27 starseeker OK, I guess I'll go ahead and put my current "working" file up there. Even if it is eventually chopped up into other files, at least the markup will be preserved in cvs
01:24.10 brlcad yeah, don't be afraid to commit as much as you like, can rarely ever commit too early or too frequently :)
01:24.24 starseeker :-)
01:34.56 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * 10brlcad/doc/book/VolumeII.xml:
01:34.56 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: This is the initial text only translation of the original source
01:34.56 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: document of the BRL-CAD Tutorial Series Volume II - Introduction to MGED.
01:34.56 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: Despite the extension, it is not a DocBook XML document in its current
01:34.56 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: form - it is commited in this state only to record the starting point
01:34.56 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: for the conversion to XML.
01:35.00 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: Translation was done from Word using wvText from wv-1.2.3
01:36.42 ``Erik wow, a commit bit already
01:36.50 ``Erik now, I have to ask
01:36.53 ``Erik is it xml, or sgml?
01:36.58 starseeker It will be xml
01:37.18 starseeker That's supposedly the "wave of the future" for docbook
01:37.26 starseeker apparently sgml was a bit too complicated
01:38.12 starseeker Hang on - in a few minutes I'll commit what I've got marked up so far
01:45.50 CIA-4 BRL-CAD: 03starseeker * 10brlcad/doc/book/VolumeII.xml: Beginnings of Docbook XML markup.
01:46.35 starseeker I'm not sure if we want the PUBLIC tag or if we want to store our own copy - it will depend on the requirements of the toolchain
01:50.38 starseeker OK, at least it's a start. Bedtime for me. Thanks brlcad!
01:51.12 brlcad thank you!
01:51.16 brlcad it is a start
01:51.28 brlcad that's the best progress to date ;)
01:51.35 starseeker really? eeep.
01:51.57 brlcad well, you'd see docbook files lying around had others gotten further
01:52.07 starseeker point
01:52.16 brlcad I've set this same up for other projects, but just not for cad ..
01:53.13 starseeker I think the BRL-CAD files will actually map rather well to this, based on progress so far.
01:53.47 starseeker It looks like whoever wrote the original word files was using the same conventions that Docbook modeled off of
01:53.55 starseeker (caution, information, etc.)
01:55.50 brlcad at this point, shouldn't matter
01:55.58 starseeker Cool.
02:09.07 starseeker brlcad: Do we want to keep using the screenshots in the original documents or are updated ones in order?
02:15.14 brlcad updated ones are in order for some of them, particularly the menu shotw
02:16.41 starseeker OK. I can only take them on Linux though - is that OK or do we want Windows shots?
02:18.46 brlcad it should be fine
02:18.50 starseeker Cool :-)
02:19.02 brlcad they were originally taken on linux anyways
02:19.17 starseeker Ah :-).
02:20.02 brlcad heh
02:20.41 brlcad windows gets by far the most downloads, but most of the users (at least that I interact with) are on linux and mac os x
02:21.44 starseeker Maxima was like that too, IIRC.
02:22.25 brlcad just shows how much a demand there is in the open source realm.. and how much better we need to be doing on usability
02:22.43 starseeker I was somewhat surprised to see SALOME had another release
02:23.06 starseeker I wish I knew what they were good at but building the sucker is a nightmare
02:24.07 starseeker brlcad: Do you think the UI will stay with TCL/TK for the foreseeable future? (just curious)
02:24.11 louipc bah windows users just don't get it
02:26.15 starseeker louipc: They have an expectation of everything being GUI, that's for sure...
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02:26.44 louipc hehe yeah that's for sure.
02:26.44 starseeker To be fair about it though, most open source stuff doesn't present a good front on Windows - it's a real challenge
02:27.38 starseeker For almost every Maxima release getting it working on Windows was the major stumbling block.
02:28.16 starseeker mingw is an adventure...
02:28.19 louipc yeah windows doesn't provide a good environment
02:28.42 starseeker Does BRL-CAD build using mingw and friends or more normal tools?
02:28.48 louipc hehe I love mingw, I can kind of pretend I'm not in windows anymore
02:29.02 louipc starseeker: there was a guy doing builds in cygwin
02:29.07 starseeker ouch
02:29.38 starseeker Cygwin is great if you want to turn Windows into a pseudo-Unix box, but for distributing binaries it has a lot of overhead...
02:29.41 louipc I think there's an intent to build it in mingw if it hasn't been achieved already
02:30.53 starseeker the build instructions had to specify specific versions of each component, and if you were forced to use newer ones it was a whole new problem...
02:31.14 starseeker Of course, that was back when Win98 still had to be taken into account...
02:31.32 louipc yeah win98 caused issues
02:32.06 starseeker oops
02:32.07 louipc I built tcl/tk in mingw!
02:32.16 louipc in win98!
02:32.18 starseeker tcl/tk is great for portability
02:32.27 starseeker it just feels funny ;-)
02:32.56 starseeker Actually, the most useful free Lisp graphical binding currently is to TK...
02:33.03 starseeker good stuff
02:33.34 louipc yeah there's a bunch of good things like that
02:34.44 Maloeran From what I heard, tcl/tk is very lacking in widgets and flexibility
02:35.11 Maloeran Although I haven't personally used it, I heard from people who needed to write extra widgets constantly
02:35.25 louipc how about +itcl, itk, iwidgets ?
02:36.33 Maloeran Haven't tried them, I'm not much into GUIs...
02:36.51 Maloeran gtk2 is quite nice though
02:41.59 louipc that's quite a flip-flop eh?
02:42.08 starseeker Hehe
02:42.34 louipc sounds kind of like how I'd do things :P I have trouble programming from scratch because I've little experience
02:42.42 starseeker I was going to ask if Paraview would be a logical starting point for interface/visualization code to hook up to BRL-CAD, but I see the latest version has now moved to QT
02:44.06 starseeker Well, 2.6 still used tcl/tk
02:44.07 starseeker thought so
02:44.31 louipc neat ARL contributed to it
02:44.36 starseeker :-)
02:44.58 louipc or "contrinuted" to it
02:47.16 louipc looks like it's client/server. just the latest client is in QT
02:47.37 starseeker QT4 + VTK ~= drool ;-)
02:48.23 louipc haha it has 6 different licenses?
02:49.18 starseeker they're using a lot of libs ;-)
02:49.51 starseeker They must bundle like BRL-CAD does.
02:50.05 starseeker In fact, that explains what the ebuild guys where talking about with external libs
02:53.33 starseeker Is it considered "bad taste" to discuss GUI questions?
02:53.46 louipc I don't think so
02:54.50 louipc indeed
02:55.47 starseeker VTK definitely rules the roost for "looks" in the open source candidates I've seen, but I don't know how well it would do for interactive CAD type scenarios
02:56.17 starseeker LOL - yep, Paraview is building it's own copy of VTK
02:56.49 starseeker at least they seem to be willing to try to use the system QT4...
02:57.49 starseeker Well, later all!
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03:16.16 brlcad louipc: I've built everything under mingw in the past, only required a few minor edits at the time
03:17.44 brlcad starseeker: TBD really, MGED won't likely drop Tk anytime soon .. but a new modeling interface could certainly use something different
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05:48.18 Z80-Boy what's the command to turn *model* axes on in all four panes? I could try to put it into the .mgedrc manually
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15:32.58 Maloeran Urgh, one USD is now worth less than one CAD. Just five years ago, 1CAD was worth 0.62USD
15:34.53 minute CAD
15:34.54 minute ?
15:36.24 Z80-Boy paid in BRL-CADs
15:57.04 minute ?
15:59.51 Maloeran Canadian Dollars
16:04.05 minute oh, cool
16:04.19 minute or not as the case may be
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16:30.10 ``Erik heh
17:27.56 qazwsx does brlcad generate meshes of the parts before rendering, or does it just render it directly? (i.e. I'm hoping to use brlcad as a csg library and do my rendering in opengl with the meshes)
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20:32.39 Z80-Boy brlcad: would it be possible to model a water wave, like the surfer's dream tube, in brl-cad and then render it with Sun?
20:33.15 Z80-Boy What primitive would be suitable to render irregularly wrinkled, twisted surface?
20:33.33 Z80-Boy That can't be done with extrusion since it's curled up.
20:37.13 Z80-Boy dsp?
21:13.02 yukonbob dsp alone won't have a "curl" where there are two different levels of water (ie: water level, and curling crest of wave above it at same Z axis)
21:13.58 yukonbob s/same Z axis/ on Z axis at same X,Y/
21:35.45 Z80-Boy dsp takes some file but the format is mystery
21:35.54 Z80-Boy seems it's neither binary file nor a text file
21:36.03 Z80-Boy tried both and neither worked
21:40.52 poolio brlcad: heard of randy pausch?
21:42.31 yukonbob Z80-Boy: it's a matrix of unsigned 16-bit ints.
21:43.32 Z80-Boy can the file be longer than needed?
21:51.24 Z80-Boy it works, cool
21:51.32 Z80-Boy needs just exact size
21:51.35 Z80-Boy width*height*2
21:52.37 yukonbob "*2" == file byte size, but ea. datum is the 16bit (2byte) int value.
23:10.28 *** join/#brlcad qazwsx (n=qazwsx@unaffiliated/adgj)
23:10.34 qazwsx is thre a way to export modesl out of brlcad as meshes?
23:16.02 ``Erik sorta, yes
23:16.05 qazwsx great
23:16.10 qazwsx tell me the direction please
23:16.12 ``Erik but it can be a very slow process, O(n^3)
23:16.17 qazwsx that is fine, no need to be real time
23:16.30 qazwsx how does this work? which prog?
23:16.30 ``Erik the NMG routines convert, um, look at things liek g-stl and those
23:17.11 ``Erik g-nmg is also one to look at
23:18.05 qazwsx yeah, that looked alot more useful than stereo :-)
23:18.58 ``Erik um, stl is a simple triangle mesh format
23:20.08 qazwsx sorry, what's a "NMG" ?
23:20.32 ``Erik n-manifold geometry
23:20.48 qazwsx okay, I'm an idiot
23:20.50 qazwsx g-stl is what I want
23:20.52 ``Erik you'd probably be more interested in BOTs
23:20.55 ``Erik bag of triangle
23:20.57 qazwsx thanks, the whole stereo thing threw me off
23:21.09 qazwsx -b gave me a binary file
23:21.11 ``Erik *shrug* it does sound odd... and n/p :)
23:21.33 qazwsx wait, sorry, what does BOT offer me over stero's list of triangles?
23:21.38 qazwsx I'm greedy, and want the best solution :-)
23:24.50 ``Erik nothing? both are sets of triangles, just in a slightly different output format
23:25.30 qazwsx okay, just checking
23:26.09 qazwsx please forgive me newbiness: can you tell me which one of the 400+ cmd line utilities will let me query about a *.g database file like I can in mged? stuff like "ls blah.g" or
23:26.12 qazwsx l blah.s
23:35.57 ``Erik mged....
23:36.05 ``Erik mged -c blah.g tops
23:36.08 ``Erik mged -c blah.g l blah.s
23:37.15 qazwsx toh, I can specify a single command oh right
23:37.16 qazwsx thanks :-)

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