Subject: Mac renderer...?

From: Jon Blossom <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 13:41:23 PST

I'm planning to start working on a complete Mac VR rendering library, 
like Rend386. Part-time.  I'm fishing for ideas for 
features/implementation issues that I should include.

Things I'm planning so far:
 - Fixed point math (usually 16.16)
 - Fast trig functions using lookup tables and linear interpolation
 - Optimized color palette, user-configurable
 - Cosine flat shading
 - Psuedo-transparency using patterned fills
 - Depth-queuing (?)
 - Multiple object representations
 - Structured object inheritances (like Rend386 "segments")
 - Multiple light sources, either directional or point-source (but no shadows)
 - Customizable drivers for mouse/glove/glasses/HMD (?)
 - Question: should I use QuickDraw for polygon fills or use my own routines
     ( I wrote a set of scan-line polygon drawing routines, but QD 
might actually be faster)
 - Non-homogeneous coordinates (3x3 transform matrices) with separate 
translation vector
 - Stereo rendering
 - Viewpoint/Orientation/View Angle view setup parameters
    (Does anyone have any equations/algorithms for this type of projection?)

I have implemented most of these before, in a Mac rendering library I 
wrote about 8 months ago. That library uses double-precision numbers 
and wasn't optimized at all. It can display 500 polys at about 10 
frames/sec on a IIci and can be controlled by a PowerGlove. View setup 
consists of a viewpoint, a focus point/forward vector, and an angle of 
rotation about the z axis.

I hope that I can apply that experience to rewriting, optimizing, and 
general cleaning-up so that I can produce something at least close to 
Rend386 (if such a monumental task is possible). Hopefully, it'll match 
or better Virtus WalkThrough.

Please let me know if you have any comments, code, and/or suggestions. 
Feel free to brainstorm to me through e-mail. I hope to be able to have 
a more solid game plan/specification in a month or two, after which 
coding shouldn't take too long. I hope.

Are there people who would benefit from this? I mean, PC's have had the 
upper hand in homebrew VR for too long..!

(It's not what is seems like. I really don't have time to do this, but 
I'll try anyway!)

-Jon