[Edu-sig] Python and 3D

[Kevin Cole]

> Good to hear from you Kevin.  Did we get to talk at Pycon?

Not at this last one. I passed by your poster, but at the time, there
was too much of a crowd around it to get to it, and I didn't make it
back at a quieter moment.

> Today I'm helping an old college roommate, now a tenured physics professor,
> get VPython up and running in a Linux context (without wine, the Windows
> emulator).

I seem to recall a time when I had that running on Linux. But I
haven't used it in a very long time. (I think I saw it at a PyCon and
said to myself "Oooh that looks like it would be fun to play with."
But I didn't play with it for very long.)  I'm not remembering any
issue running it in Linux directly but, as I say, 't'was long ago and
far away, and I could well be suffering from traumatic amnesia. ;-)

> A perennially useful theme on edu-sig, especially these days when
> subscribers like Wes bring big knowledge to the scene, is taking stock,
> taking inventory, regarding what our assets are w/r to very specific niche
> areas.

Asset: I'm moderately fluent in ASL... Interest: Audio. No particular
skills above and beyond, when it comes to Python, but I've become
comfy with PySide (a.k.a. PyQt) and a wee bit o' MicroPython a la the
PyBoard. I like to think I'm a reasonably clear writer when I set my
mind to it.

> For example:  what does Python have to offer in the 3D graphics department,
> where the latter breaks down into "rendered" (still) and "real time"
> (interactive)? I think we can start out by agreeing there's nothing in the
> Standard Library for this.

I've been fooling with OpenSCAD as a user, not a developer, for use
with our hackerspace's 3D printers. And ImplicitCAD which is written
in Haskell. Jeff's school ... district? (or some umbrella that his
school falls under) is now considering OpenSCAD as part of their
curriculum.