Re: [Gnu3dkit-discuss] Actions as transactions

[Philippe C . D . Robert]

Hi,

the NeXT 3DKit and QRM docu is part of NEXTSTEP, maybe you can find it 
in the peanuts archive or peak.org. If you can't find them let me know.

-Phil

PS: I uploaded an updated UML diagram (and the overview document) to 
outline what I mean by 'thin API'. If you compare it to earlier 
versions you notice the change.

On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 05:34  Uhr, Brent Gulanowski wrote:
> The more I think Scene Actions, the more it gnaws at me that we are in 
> some way talking about a specialized database application. I don't 
> know databases, however, so this is very much just a feeling. But it 
> certainly seems as though there's a lot of searching, sorting, and 
> selecting being done by the Scene Actions. And the threat of 
> multi-threaded or multi-client access is also very database-like. So I 
> thought I should bring it up, as a means of understanding the process 
> distinct from the part about painting pixels.
>
> If a scene were to be treated like a database, what sort of 
> assumptions would the nature of the data allow us to make that would 
> simplify the design of the (programming) interface?
>
> The data is all linked together in a hierarchy
> There are only a few kinds of data (groups, shapes, geometry, lights, 
> attributes/appearance)
> Very large quantities of structured data are regularly requested -- to 
> be rendered
> Certain data might be read-only (static and compiled data)
>
> I'm intrigued by the RenderMan RIB as the solution model for 
> transferring large rendering instructions between RenderKit and the 
> Renderer plug-in. If one was loose in one's definitions, it could 
> almost be comparable to a database table in its ASCII form. In any 
> case a serialized representation, as opposed to direct API calls, 
> which is therefore data-driven (i.e.: more database-like), not 
> code-driven. Therefore more versatile, and slower. Does this 
> conceptual approach offer us any new insights or opportunities?
>
> I've downloaded the RenderMan Interface spec (3.2). I can't find 
> anything about NeXT 3DKit yet, so links are requested (or if you have 
> docs, email/instant message me -- brentgulanowski(at)mac.com via AIM 
> will work). I have quite a lot of reading to do this week.
>
> Brent Gulanowski
> --
> Mac game development news and discussion
> http://www.idevgames.com
>
>
>
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--
Philippe C.D. Robert
http://www.nice.ch/~phip