[Edu-sig] More rambling about my new snake habitat

[kirby urner]

So demoing MVC the way I teach it for sa: requires an X3D viewer,
POV-Ray, and VPython, all for visualizations of the same core model,
implemented using stickworks components:  vertex-vectors +
connect-the-dots edges.  Faces get added at a more outer layer, in one
of the "toyz" modules (I don't use them at all in the VPython version,
in some ways the most primitive).  Faces are, however, core to the
basic data structure, whether or not they are shown (typical of
geometry formats, OFF in particular).

http://shape.cs.princeton.edu/benchmark/

Fortunately, Ubuntu's Synaptic Package Manager makes it really easy to
search and install packages over the Internet, including FreeWRL
1.19.5 (it does X3D in addition to VRML so my demo is working).

http://freewrl.sourceforge.net/

When I first opened the box, I ran the update manager, which seems to
appear periodically on the top horizontal bar (the period is a user
setting).

A massive upgrade ensued (which used to result in a crash on reboot
when these puppies first shipped -- problem fixed), including a
download/install of Python 2.5, abetting the two earlier Pythons
already housed.

But it's a minimal install.  Using Synaptic, I added IDLE with Tk,
which automatically added itself to the main Applications Menu under
Programming (little trowel icon, Python's double snake for IDLE
itself, which by default does *not* launch a subprocess (something to
change)).  VPython likewise came through Synaptic (version
3.2.1-4build1).

There's a site-packages at /usr/local/python2.5/site-packages, but by
default it belongs to root and staff (a group).  I don't find the
staff group when I go to administer users and groups.

As a lowly user, I'm feeling /home/kirby is where I'm encouraged to
keep my .py files.  Do .pth files work in Linux like in Windows?

Speaking of Windows, I noticed my connectingthedots.pdf looked kinda
crummy on Ubuntu, like the fonts weren't right.  Sure enough,
Microsoft's weirdo brands of Arial needed to go in the suitcase along
with the rest of the graphics, increasing the file size but improving
the view.

The ppt (not available at my ftp site) opened almost flawlessly in
OpenOffice impress.  I just needed to tweak a few of the slides a
little, and resave.  But that means it'll be hard to just swap the
file back and forth between platforms -- which adds to my sense that
it's frozen, at least for now.

Hypertoons also work great (see my Youtube examples).  I'll be able to
show VPython randomly drawing transforming polyhedra with two play
heads (two threads), while rotating the Beryl cube.

One of my geek friends came by for lunch today and I was able to do
that thing Miguel de Icaza demoed at OSCON like two years ago:  a DVD
(in my case 'Idiocracy') playing in a window that folds around the
edge of the rotating cube, half a window in each of two desktops.

Meaningless eye candy I realize.

Very iPhone.

Miguel shows off many more recent xgl type effects in his blog:
http://tirania.org/blog/

xgl:
http://images.google.com/images?q=xgl&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title

Kirby