[lug] in search of 3D api

[Archer Sully]

"Scott A. Herod" wrote:
> 
> khchan at cyberdude.com wrote:
> >
> > hi,
> >
> > wondering if anyone knows of a 3D api for
> > linux and other platforms that's not too
> > difficult to learn, yet has comprehensive
> > functionality? (stuff like boolean operations,
> > cut, scene graph, selection feedback, etc).
> >
> > currently looking at an api called opencascade.
> > seems like a bit of a challenge to use it at
> > this moment... so i thought i'd just keep some
> > alternatives in mind.
> >
> > kh
> 
> Hi,
> 
> People I know would thump me for saying so, but
> I still like SGI's Performer.  It's perhaps bigger
> than what you want, but it's not bad to learn
> if you know OpenGL.
> 
> http://www.sgi.com/developers/devtools/apis/performer.html
> 
>

Performer is a good API, but it is really optimized for 
high performance VisSim apps.  Considering what I recall
of the internals of Performer, I have doubts that it
could run on Linux.  Open Inventor might be a better 
choice, but I don't know how much development is going 
on with it right now.  I've done some programming with
it and found it tolerable, except for the fact that it
uses reference counting (boo, hiss!).

<http://www.sgi.com/developers/devtools/apis/inventor.html>

-- archer