Re: GNOME & 3D API

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs eazel com>]

Lauris Kaplinski <lauris@ariman.ee> writes:

> Hello,
> 
> As in near future, OpenGL together with GLX will be the standard component
> of XFree, I propose we should seriously think about adding a high-level 3D
> API to GNOME libraries.
> 
> Pros:
> 1. I hope that GNOME, as a viable DE, will start to attract more people,
> developing educational programs, games, scientific tools etc.
> 2. For serious projects, there are quake engine and probably other
> packages. But Quake engine is probably overkill for 3D tetris or Solar
> system presenting program.
> 3. OpenGL is 3D rendering engine. To do any kind of real work, one
> usually needs aditionally higher-level, state persistent objects.
> 4. It would be nice, to have 3D analogue of GnomeCanvas, for fast
> high-level programming. OpenGL is over-complex for beginners.

Such an API has been defined; it's called OpenInventor. Maybe SGI
would consider open sourcing it, I don't think it's a huge revenue
stream for them.

 - Maciej