PARD: Graphics
PovFront is a front-end for POV-Ray ray tracer. It aims at providing an easy
way to launch pov rendering with a graphical interface which manage all the
available options even the script only ones.
3dom stands for 3-Dimensional Object Modeler. The aim of 3dom is to offer a
tool to model reality with user-chosen accuracy, and user-chosen inclination
for a particular purpose, which can be gradually improved and extended.
3dom is designed to be a general-purpose modeler, however it is especially
inclined to model scenes for Global Illumination purposes.
Leo 3D is a real time 3D modelling application which enables you to create
realistic 3D scenes using different rendering applications (such as Povray
or BMRT for example). It also exports VRML files.
Moonlight Creator is a highly portable environment dedicated to virtual
creation. It currently supports 3D creation: modelling, illuminating and
rendering 3D objects and scenes.
Sced is a modelling program that makes use of geometric constraints to edit
objects in a virtual world. The scenes created can be exported to a variety
of rendering programs.
Superficie (surface) is a small program that allows to visualize 3D surfaces
(surprise!), and to have certain interaction with them. It allows to rotate,
to move away, to show illumination, etc. on the surface at issue.
AA-lib is a low level graphics library just as many other libraries are. The
main difference is that AA-lib does not require graphics device. In fact,
there is no graphical output possible. AA-lib replaces those old-fashioned
output methods with powerful ascii-art renderer. Now my linux boots with a
nice penguin logo at secondary display (yes! Like Win95 does:) AA-lib API is
designed to be similar to other graphics libraries. Learning a new API would
be a piece of cake!
g2 is a easy to use graphics library for 2D graphical applications written
in Ansi-C. g2 library provides a comprehensive set of functions for
simultaneous generation of graphical output on different types of devices.
Presently, following devices are supported by g2: PostScript, GIF and X11
(xfig and Win32 are in development). g2 has C and Fortran interface.
libpng is the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) reference implementation
library. PNG supports alpha-channels, gamma correction and up-to 48-bit
color, as well as many other nice features.
Mesa is a 3-D graphics library which uses the OpenGL API (Application
Programming Interface). Mesa cannot be called an implementation of OpenGL
since I did not obtain an OpenGL license from SGI. Furthermore, Mesa cannot
claim OpenGL conformance since the conformance tests are only available to
OpenGL licensees. Despite these technical/legal terms, you may find Mesa to
be a valid alternative to OpenGL.
I started writing Mesa in my spare time in August of 1993. I wrote the
library because I thought it would be fun to do and expected other people
could make use of it. Also, the library implements many basic 3-D computer
graphics algorithms- beginners may find it instructional.
Most applications written for OpenGL can be recompiled for Mesa without
making any source code changes.
Mesa's performance is most directly related to CPU performance. Recent
releases of Mesa have featured speed optimizations. Mesa's getting faster
all the time!
KIllustrator is a freely available vector-based drawing application for the
famous K Desktop Environment similiar to Corel Draw(tm) or Adobe
Illustrator(tm).
The features:
- different object types: polylines, circles, ellipses, squares,
rectangles, (symmetric) polygons, freehand lines, bezier curves and
multiline text
- tools for moving, scaling, rotating as well as grouping,
ungrouping, aligning, distributing and reordering objects
- various line
styles and arrows
- a multilevel undo/redo facility
- a property editor
- multi-window support with cut/copy/paste between the windows
- zooming
and snapping to grid
- multilevel undo/redo
- (network-transparent) drop
support with the KDE filemanager
- printing to PostScript (file or printer)
- preliminary WMF support
- export to raster image formats (GIF, PNG,
XPM) and Encapsulated Postscript
- import of Xfig files
fly is a C program that creates GIF images on the fly from CGI and other
programs. Using Thomas Boutell's gd graphics library for fast GIF creation,
it provides a command-file interface for creating and modifying GIF images.
The General Graphics Interface Project is an attempt to setup a general,
fast, efficient and secure interface to graphics and human-machine
interaction hardware for UNIX-like operating systems. It allows normal
applications to have direct but controlled access to the underlying graphics
hardware without compromising system stability. The basic design consists of
two parts. First a kernel part, which does all the critical operations that
may cause the system to hang or may cause damage to the hardware. Second is a
library, that translates the drawing requests from applications into
'commands' for the kernel part.
The highlights of GGI can be summarized as:
- XGGI, a non-SUID X server running with GGI is now available. The kernel
part is not backward compatible yet, but this will be fixed with the next
release. You will be able to choose between old SUID servers and the new,
hardware independent XGGI server then.
- first implementation of libGGI.
This library allows GGI applications to run in various environments without a
change. E.g. you can simply run the XGGI server 'on the hardware' and 'on
itself'. LibGGI has been ported to various platforms, like AIX and IRIX, and
more platforms will be supported in the next release. You can use libGGI
without the kernel part, if your card is not supported yet.
- A replacement
for SVGAlib that allows you to run older SVGAlib applications is included.
However, they should not need root-rights anymore. This lib is still under
development, so please report us your experiences with it.
- easy to use
support for mixed brand multi-display configurations. You can plug in two
video cards, from different vendors and run independent graphics
applications (or consoles) on both. Configurations tested include S3 968
with normal VGA, 3Dlabs Permedia based cards, another (two) S3 968 cards and
lots more. But multihead capability depends on the particular drivers and
hardware, so not all supported cards can be run multi-display.
- support
for mixed brand multi-input configurations. Connect as many mice to your
computer as you want and use them with your favourite graphics application
or even on the console. No extra configuration needed, just load the driver.
Together with the multi-display capability this allows you to run
multi-terminal machines. Simply connect two keyboards (one to the keyboard
port and one to the ps/2 aux port), plus two serial mice and run two
independent graphics applications (e.g. a game on one and XGGI on the
other). Of course none of them needs other than access permissions to some
special files.
Zgv is a graphic file viewer for VGA and SVGA displays which supports most
popular formats (it uses svgalib). It provides a graphic-mode file selector
to select file(s) to view and allows panning and fit-to-screen methods of
viewing, slideshows, scaling, etc.
© 1999 by Stefan Hornburg
<racke@linuxia.de>
Last modified 03. June 1999
