Let's start it !

[Eric]

That seems to be an interesting forum...
But I have a question : where can I find these high-level APIs ???
Are they commercial or free ?

Regards.

Eric

[Bob]

Most of 'em belong to SGI , and you can find them somewhere there.
Dunno if any of them is free, but there are at least demo-like versions for download.

[Eric]

Well, I have had a look and it seems that these APIs are only available on IRIX on Linux... Nothing for Win32...

But as Open Inventor has been Open-Sources, perhaps we'll see a port on Windows !

Thanks Bob !

Eric

[waxxworx]

Where do these apis fit in? In other words, what is Performer used for as compared to OpenGl itself?

[Intruder]

Originally posted by waxxworx:
Where do these apis fit in? In other words, what is Performer used for as compared to OpenGl itself?

- Performer is mostly used for Visual Simulation (could be your military flight sim, virtual reality entertainment system)

- Inventor is oriented toward 3d application such as a 3d modeler for example

And all of them sit on top of OpenGL of course ;-)

Fred

[Intruder]

Originally posted by Bob:
Most of 'em belong to SGI , and you can find them somewhere there.
Dunno if any of them is free, but there are at least demo-like versions for download.

Inventor has been released under LGPL so it is free to use (for commercial and non commercial development)

Performer it isnt clear, it is avalaible for free under Linux (to get IRIX version i think you need to contact SGI) but its too clear under what kind of license it has been release 8-(.

There are several high level APIs besides SGI's Performer (IRIX) and Open Inventor (now open source for Win).
Quesa http://quesa.designcommunity.com/ implements QD3D on Win & Mac
Gizmo3D http://www.linux3d.net/gizmo3d/ on Linux & Win
OpenRM Scene Graph http://openrm.sourceforge.net/ for Linux & Win
Hoop3d http://www.hoops3d.comv for Linux & Win

There are more, but those should ge you started

[RatKing]

You shouldnt 4get Coin --> http://www.coin3d.org

-=RatKing=-