From: R. Matthew Emerson
Subject: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <87672uotv9.fsf@nightfly.apk.net>
I wrote some Lisp code that does 3D viewing.  It draws wireframe
polygons either in a Macintosh window (if you have MCL), or
in an X window (if you have to use CLX).

It's totally unoptimized, but I think the code looks sort
of nice, and it's been fun playing around with it.

If nothing else, maybe someone would find it to be a useful
example of the minimum amount of code needed to draw graphics
into a window using CLX.

It's at http://www.thoughtstuff.com/rme/lisp.html#3d-viewing

-matt

From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-0508992230410001@194.163.195.67>
In article <··············@nightfly.apk.net>, ···@nightfly.apk.net (R. Matthew Emerson) wrote:

> I wrote some Lisp code that does 3D viewing.  It draws wireframe
> polygons either in a Macintosh window (if you have MCL), or
> in an X window (if you have to use CLX).

Btw., you could use CLX under MCL, too. ;-)
From: R. Matthew Emerson
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <871zdiosiy.fsf@nightfly.apk.net>
······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) writes:

> In article <··············@nightfly.apk.net>, ···@nightfly.apk.net
> (R. Matthew Emerson) wrote:
> 
> > I wrote some Lisp code that does 3D viewing.  It draws wireframe
> > polygons either in a Macintosh window (if you have MCL), or
> > in an X window (if you have to use CLX).
> 
> Btw., you could use CLX under MCL, too. ;-)

Eew.  What a revolting notion.

I could scoop my brains out with a plastic spoon, but that
doesn't make the thought any more attractive. :-)

-matt
From: Rainer Joswig
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <joswig-0508992257300001@194.163.195.67>
In article <··············@nightfly.apk.net>, ···@nightfly.apk.net (R. Matthew Emerson) wrote:

> ······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) writes:
> 
> > In article <··············@nightfly.apk.net>, ···@nightfly.apk.net
> > (R. Matthew Emerson) wrote:
> > 
> > > I wrote some Lisp code that does 3D viewing.  It draws wireframe
> > > polygons either in a Macintosh window (if you have MCL), or
> > > in an X window (if you have to use CLX).
> > 
> > Btw., you could use CLX under MCL, too. ;-)
> 
> Eew.  What a revolting notion.

Why not? You could open windows from MCL to an
X server on another machine...
Porting CLX is straightforward...
From: R. Matthew Emerson
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <87wvv9oel6.fsf@nightfly.apk.net>
······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) writes:

> In article <··············@nightfly.apk.net>, ···@nightfly.apk.net
> (R. Matthew Emerson) wrote:
> 
> > ······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) writes:
> > 
> > > Btw., you could use CLX under MCL, too. ;-)
> > 
> > Eew.  What a revolting notion.
> 
> Why not? You could open windows from MCL to an
> X server on another machine...
> Porting CLX is straightforward...

I certainly can see how it's possible to load CLX into MCL and use X.
I said "eew" because I think X is painful to program, and if I can
avoid using it, I do.  MCL's facilities for using the native Macintosh
toolbox calls are much nicer.

I'm being a little unfair, because MCL has a nice closified interface
to a large part of the toolbox, and CLX isn't much more than the bare
X protocol.  But I've always been unhappy that you have to have
several layers of software (Xlib, Xt, a widget set), and then suffer
the resulting bloat, in order to make reasonable use of X.

I've always admired Rob Pike's work on window systems.  His window
system 8.5 is less than 100K, and *includes* a terminal emulator.
(His 8.5 paper is at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/doc/8%bd.html)
The X server is ten times that size, and even doesn't do anything for
you---it's essentially overhead.

X's network transparency is very nice (but other window systems have
that too: NeWS, NeXTstep, and the aforementioned 8.5 come to mind),
and is very handy when you want to run a program on a powerful remote
computer and display the results on your (presumably wimpy) desktop
machine.  But it doesn't seem very reasonable to use a Macintosh as a
powerful server machine.  Of course, if MCL gets ported to MacOS X
Server, then that's a different mattter....

-matt
From: Paolo Amoroso
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <37aafadf.32539@news.mclink.it>
On Fri, 06 Aug 1999 01:54:42 GMT, ···@nightfly.apk.net (R. Matthew Emerson)
wrote:

> X protocol.  But I've always been unhappy that you have to have
> several layers of software (Xlib, Xt, a widget set), and then suffer
> the resulting bloat, in order to make reasonable use of X.

SLIK is a thin layer above Xlib. It is a user interface toolkit that is
part of PRISM, a radiation therapy planning system developed at Washington
University. The PRISM Web site is:

  http://www.radonc.washington.edu/medinfo/prism/

The source code and documentation of SLIK are available at:

  ftp://ftp.radonc.washington.edu:/dist/slik/

Incidentally, the PRISM developers are planning to add 3D graphics support
and they may be interested in your code.


Paolo
-- 
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it>
From: Marco Antoniotti
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <lwu2qdidlq.fsf@copernico.parades.rm.cnr.it>
···@nightfly.apk.net (R. Matthew Emerson) writes:

> I've always admired Rob Pike's work on window systems.  His window
> system 8.5 ...

Just to be annoying :), but by writing the name like that, you are
missing the cinematographical citation here. The Window System in
question is really named "8 and a half" (8�).  From the group who gave
us "Plan 9", you had to expect something like this.  :)

Cheers

-- 
Marco Antoniotti ===========================================
PARADES, Via San Pantaleo 66, I-00186 Rome, ITALY
tel. +39 - 06 68 10 03 17, fax. +39 - 06 68 80 79 26
http://www.parades.rm.cnr.it/~marcoxa
From: John Wiseman
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <arxr9lgetis.fsf@gargoyle.cs.uchicago.edu>
···@nightfly.apk.net (R. Matthew Emerson) writes:

> ······@lavielle.com (Rainer Joswig) writes:
> 
> > In article <··············@nightfly.apk.net>, ···@nightfly.apk.net
> > (R. Matthew Emerson) wrote:
> > 
> > > I wrote some Lisp code that does 3D viewing.  It draws wireframe
> > > polygons either in a Macintosh window (if you have MCL), or in
> > > an X window (if you have to use CLX).
> > 
> > Btw., you could use CLX under MCL, too. ;-)
> 
> Eew.  What a revolting notion.
> 
> I could scoop my brains out with a plastic spoon, but that
> doesn't make the thought any more attractive. :-)

Another (less revolting) option for 3D graphics in MCL is to use
QuickDraw 3D.  See <http://www.neodesic.com/lisp/QD3D/>.

The QD3D interface works only with MCL and it has the additional
disadvantage of using a now-dead Apple technology, but it does allow
one to create nice 3D graphics very easily.


John Wiseman
From: Gareth McCaughan
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <86907pg63i.fsf@g.local>
R. Matthew Emerson wrote:

> I could scoop my brains out with a plastic spoon, but that
> doesn't make the thought any more attractive. :-)

No. You could scoop *some* of your brains out with a plastic
spoon. :-)

-- 
Gareth McCaughan  ················@pobox.com
sig under construction
From: Paolo Amoroso
Subject: Re: 3D viewing in lisp
Date: 
Message-ID: <37ab3a63.1192653@news.mclink.it>
On Thu, 05 Aug 1999 20:24:38 GMT, ···@nightfly.apk.net (R. Matthew Emerson)
wrote:

> I wrote some Lisp code that does 3D viewing.  It draws wireframe
[...]
> It's at http://www.thoughtstuff.com/rme/lisp.html#3d-viewing

Besides ACL, as stated in the page, the code also seems to work with CMU CL
and CLISP.


paolo
-- 
Paolo Amoroso <·······@mclink.it>