All,

   I've been using Eduardo Iturrate's IDL Revolution object graphics
code generator for about two weeks now and have found it to be a very
useful tool, on a par with xobjectview. It has saved me a great deal
of time while providing valuable insight into the mechanics of writing
object graphics code. It's trivial to replace IDLgrView with
RHTgrCamera in the generated code for added versatility and
straightforward to do a first order optimization of the generated
code. Coupled with Ronn Kling's book, it provides a great way to get
started using object graphics.
   Michael Galloy did a byline on Revolution back in March, but
otherwise have there has been little notice taken as far as I can tell
-- I only found one reference to it in this group and there have only
been ~180 downloads from the IDL site which I find rather surprising.
   Has anyone else found it useful?

Bill

wclift01@harris.com writes:

>    I've been using Eduardo Iturrate's IDL Revolution object graphics
> code generator for about two weeks now and have found it to be a very
> useful tool, on a par with xobjectview. It has saved me a great deal
> of time while providing valuable insight into the mechanics of writing
> object graphics code. It's trivial to replace IDLgrView with
> RHTgrCamera in the generated code for added versatility and
> straightforward to do a first order optimization of the generated
> code. Coupled with Ronn Kling's book, it provides a great way to get
> started using object graphics.
>    Michael Galloy did a byline on Revolution back in March, but
> otherwise have there has been little notice taken as far as I can tell
> -- I only found one reference to it in this group and there have only
> been ~180 downloads from the IDL site which I find rather surprising.
>    Has anyone else found it useful?

Perhaps you can provide a link. I can't find the darn thing.

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

Eduardo's most excellent contribution to IDL learning can be found at
the ITT VIS codebank website:

http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/search.asp?FID=473

Share and enjoy!

Jim P.

"David Fanning" <news@dfanning.com> wrote in message 
news:MPG.20a63f6a616122be989f91@news.frii.com...
> wclift01@harris.com writes:
>
>>    I've been using Eduardo Iturrate's IDL Revolution object graphics
>> code generator for about two weeks now and have found it to be a very
>> useful tool, on a par with xobjectview. It has saved me a great deal
>> of time while providing valuable insight into the mechanics of writing
>> object graphics code. It's trivial to replace IDLgrView with
>> RHTgrCamera in the generated code for added versatility and
>> straightforward to do a first order optimization of the generated
>> code. Coupled with Ronn Kling's book, it provides a great way to get
>> started using object graphics.
>>    Michael Galloy did a byline on Revolution back in March, but
>> otherwise have there has been little notice taken as far as I can tell
>> -- I only found one reference to it in this group and there have only
>> been ~180 downloads from the IDL site which I find rather surprising.
>>    Has anyone else found it useful?
>
> Perhaps you can provide a link. I can't find the darn thing.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
> -- 
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.") 

On May 5, 10:15 am, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> wclif...@harris.com writes:
> >    I've been using Eduardo Iturrate's IDL Revolution object graphics
> > code generator for about two weeks now and have found it to be a very
> > useful tool, on a par with xobjectview. It has saved me a great deal
> > of time while providing valuable insight into the mechanics of writing
> > object graphics code. It's trivial to replace IDLgrView with
> > RHTgrCamera in the generated code for added versatility and
> > straightforward to do a first order optimization of the generated
> > code. Coupled with Ronn Kling's book, it provides a great way to get
> > started using object graphics.
> >    Michael Galloy did a byline on Revolution back in March, but
> > otherwise have there has been little notice taken as far as I can tell
> > -- I only found one reference to it in this group and there have only
> > been ~180 downloads from the IDL site which I find rather surprising.
> >    Has anyone else found it useful?
>
> Perhaps you can provide a link. I can't find the darn thing.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.dfanning.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

Sure, the link is http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/search.asp?FID=473

Bill

Jim Pendleton writes:

> Eduardo's most excellent contribution to IDL learning can be found at
> the ITT VIS codebank website:
> 
> http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/search.asp?FID=473
> 
> Share and enjoy!

I seem to be having a GREAT deal of trouble finding things
related to this program. I'm trying to do the 2nd Tutorial
and the directions call for me to "download the file
tutankhamen.dxf from our web page". Which web page is this?
I can't find it on the ITTVIS web page and I see no other 
reference to a "web page". :-(

And where is this program, exactly, in the codebank?
I got it by following the above link, sure enough, but
I haven't been able to find it by searching the ITTVIS
web page, and I didn't find it in likely categories of
the Code Bank.

I asked my Tai Chi teacher why he doesn't advertise his
little, out-of-the-way studio. He just shrugged. "The
students we want always find us." I didn't realize IDL object
graphics had this same spiritual side to them. It makes
sense, I guess.

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

> I seem to be having a GREAT deal of trouble finding things
> related to this program. I'm trying to do the 2nd Tutorial
> and the directions call for me to "download the file
> tutankhamen.dxf from our web page". Which web page is this?
> I can't find it on the ITTVIS web page and I see no other
> reference to a "web page". :-(


I had this idea of creating a web site with tutorials, data files,
tips&tricks etc., but I guess there is not enough time in a day.

Any dxf file will do, there are plenty of them out there, for
example:
http://www.with.ne.jp/~neval/data/facedxf.lzh  (you'll need to
decompress the file)

This application is a personal project to help working with IDL object
graphics. It's really worth going through the tutorials to understand
how it works and to learn its capabilities. I'll be happy to help if
anybody has questions.

-Eduardo.

On May 7, 1:32 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> Jim Pendleton writes:
> > Eduardo's most excellent contribution to IDL learning can be found at
> > the ITT VIS codebank website:
>
> >http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/search.asp?FID=473
>
> > Share and enjoy!
>
> I seem to be having a GREAT deal of trouble finding things
> related to this program. I'm trying to do the 2nd Tutorial
> and the directions call for me to "download the file
> tutankhamen.dxf from our web page". Which web page is this?
> I can't find it on the ITTVIS web page and I see no other
> reference to a "web page". :-(
>
> And where is this program, exactly, in the codebank?
> I got it by following the above link, sure enough, but
> I haven't been able to find it by searching the ITTVIS
> web page, and I didn't find it in likely categories of
> the Code Bank.
>
> I asked my Tai Chi teacher why he doesn't advertise his
> little, out-of-the-way studio. He just shrugged. "The
> students we want always find us." I didn't realize IDL object
> graphics had this same spiritual side to them. It makes
> sense, I guess.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.dfanning.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

David,

   Sorry to hear of your woes -- however I readily found the file
under "Advanced Visualization" and when searching under "revolution",
"object", "graphics" and "object graphics". I can't speak to the
tutorials since I haven't tried them.
   Other than the difficulties you mention, what's your opinion of
"Revolution"?

Bill

weclifton@gmail.com writes:

>    Sorry to hear of your woes -- however I readily found the file
> under "Advanced Visualization" and when searching under "revolution",
> "object", "graphics" and "object graphics". I can't speak to the
> tutorials since I haven't tried them.

Humm. Well, I just when to the ITTVIS web page and typed every
single one of these terms into the Search box and didn't come up
with a single thing that said "revolution" in the name. What is your
secret?

>    Other than the difficulties you mention, what's your opinion of
> "Revolution"?

My current opinion is that it is devilishly hard to find!
I haven't been able to form any opinion whatsoever of the
software yet, however.

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

David Fanning wrote:
> weclifton@gmail.com writes:
> 
>>    Sorry to hear of your woes -- however I readily found the file
>> under "Advanced Visualization" and when searching under "revolution",
>> "object", "graphics" and "object graphics". I can't speak to the
>> tutorials since I haven't tried them.
> 
> Humm. Well, I just when to the ITTVIS web page and typed every
> single one of these terms into the Search box and didn't come up
> with a single thing that said "revolution" in the name. What is your
> secret?

Hello,

I clicked on the supplied link in the previous messages:
   http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/search.asp?FID=473
and I was in the Revolution page at RSI. Clicking on the "download" button gave me a 
RevolutionIDL.zip file.

Simply searching for "Revolution" in the codebank search box at
   http://www.ittvis.com/codebank
produced the same result.

But, searching from the *main* ittvis webpage didn't produce anything useful. I even tried 
searching for "codebank" and got "no results were found". Very useful.

cheers,

paulv

-- 
Paul van Delst             Ride lots.
CIMSS @ NOAA/NCEP/EMC               Eddy Merckx

Paul van Delst writes:

> But, searching from the *main* ittvis webpage didn't produce anything useful. I even tried 
> searching for "codebank" and got "no results were found". Very useful.

Ah, well, good. I can stop cleaning my office, looking
for that piece of paper I wrote the magic incantations
on. What do you suppose it is that the main search box is
searching? If we knew what questions to ask, I'll bet
we would find answers. :-)

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

On May 7, 3:51 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> Paul van Delst writes:
> > But, searching from the *main* ittvis webpage didn't produce anything useful. I even tried
> > searching for "codebank" and got "no results were found". Very useful.
>
> Ah, well, good. I can stop cleaning my office, looking
> for that piece of paper I wrote the magic incantations
> on. What do you suppose it is that the main search box is
> searching? If we knew what questions to ask, I'll bet
> we would find answers. :-)
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.dfanning.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

LOL, You guys are killing me...all I can say is that a real search
engine for our website is on order :-)  In the meantime, best to just
keep watching the newsgroups for all the hard-coded links back into
Code Contrib where many gems reside.

Thanks,
-P

On May 7, 9:37 pm, Paul Sommer <psom...@ittvis.com> wrote:
> On May 7, 3:51 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Paul van Delst writes:
> > > But, searching from the *main* ittvis webpage didn't produce anything useful. I even tried
> > > searching for "codebank" and got "no results were found". Very useful.
>
> > Ah, well, good. I can stop cleaning my office, looking
> > for that piece of paper I wrote the magic incantations
> > on. What do you suppose it is that the main search box is
> > searching? If we knew what questions to ask, I'll bet
> > we would find answers. :-)
>
> > Cheers,
>
> > David
> > --
> > David Fanning, Ph.D.
> > Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> > Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.dfanning.com/
> > Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
>
> LOL, You guys are killing me...all I can say is that a real search
> engine for our website is on order :-)  In the meantime, best to just
> keep watching the newsgroups for all the hard-coded links back into
> Code Contrib where many gems reside.
>
> Thanks,
> -P- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

David,

  It is bizarre -- nothing found when searching from http://www.ittvis.com/idl/
but the search is sucessful from http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/index.asp
and http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/index.asp?list=bycategory&product=IDL.
   It is only by serendipity, as opposed to the possession of a
secret, that I've been by-passing the broken search at the top IDL
page (http://www.ittvis.com/idl/) with a bookmark I put in place some
time ago. Clearly the search engine needs an overhaul.

Bill

On May 7, 5:51 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:

> What do you suppose it is that the main search box is
> searching? If we knew what questions to ask, I'll bet
> we would find answers. :-)

I have the same problem with our university web pages.  We've paid
some (presumably large) amount of money for a google search appliance
that doesn't work to find simple things like main department web
pages.  The amazing thing is that if I use the free version of google,
it works perfectly well!  I think this is a fairly universal problem
based on the "we get what we pay for, so we'd better pay a lot" rule.

Mike

On May 7, 3:40 pm, eduardo.iturr...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> This application is a personal project to help working with IDL object
> graphics. It's really worth going through the tutorials to understand
> how it works and to learn its capabilities. I'll be happy to help if
> anybody has questions.
>

I'm not doing too well with it. So far, I have:

1) Violation of good IDL programming practices -- requiring a .COMPILE
before .RUN

2) I get this error message for some unknown reason:

% FILE_MOVE: Unable to expand wildcards in file path, or file does not
exist: /tmp/\tempundo.sav
% Execution halted at: SCG_OBJECTGRAPHICS_EVENT
%                      WIDGET_PROCESS_EVENTS
%                      $MAIN$

3) After the crash, the only way to kill the widget is to .RESET the
IDL session

Ick.

On May 8, 8:59 am, Mike <Michael.Mill...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 7, 5:51 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
>
> > What do you suppose it is that the main search box is
> > searching? If we knew what questions to ask, I'll bet
> > we would find answers. :-)
>
> I have the same problem with our university web pages.  We've paid
> some (presumably large) amount of money for a google search appliance
> that doesn't work to find simple things like main department web
> pages.  The amazing thing is that if I use the free version of google,
> it works perfectly well!  I think this is a fairly universal problem
> based on the "we get what we pay for, so we'd better pay a lot" rule.
>
> Mike

I find that a search on google.com for "site:website.com searchterm"
is almost always far better than any search box provided on a website.
Even if the search box is a google search appliance. In this case you
should type "site:ittvis.com revolution" and you will have the proper
page listed first.

On May 8, 11:00 am, Pete Warner <warner.p...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On May 8, 8:59 am, Mike <Michael.Mill...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On May 7, 5:51 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
>
> > > What do you suppose it is that the main search box is
> > > searching? If we knew what questions to ask, I'll bet
> > > we would find answers. :-)
>
> > I have the same problem with our university web pages.  We've paid
> > some (presumably large) amount of money for a google search appliance
> > that doesn't work to find simple things like main department web
> > pages.  The amazing thing is that if I use the free version of google,
> > it works perfectly well!  I think this is a fairly universal problem
> > based on the "we get what we pay for, so we'd better pay a lot" rule.
>
> > Mike
>
> I find that a search on google.com for "site:website.com searchterm"
> is almost always far better than any search box provided on a website.
> Even if the search box is a google search appliance. In this case you
> should type "site:ittvis.com revolution" and you will have the proper
> page listed first.

All,

   Besides the difficulties encountered finding it, any opinions on
the application?

Bill

weclifton@gmail.com writes:

>    Besides the difficulties encountered finding it, any opinions on
> the application?

I have to admit, when I realized the very first file wasn't
even named correctly to run automatically, my expectations
were not very high. So low, in fact, that I haven't found
the time to get back to it yet. I'm mean, really, this is
a *code* generator, supposedly. And the IDL code doesn't
run automatically. Should we take bets on how well it
is going to work ahead of actually learning to run the thing?

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

David Fanning writes:

> I'm mean, really, this is
> a *code* generator, supposedly.

Whoops! A little Freudian slip there. In truth, I don't
want to be mean. I'm just trying to be honest in my reaction.
If the *first* thing I try shows a basic misunderstanding of
IDL code generation, then my confidence in what comes next
is not high.

I'll probably try it again, but I'm out of the office for
a week and...

Cheers,

David
-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

On May 8, 5:25 pm, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> David Fanning writes:
> > I'm mean, really, this is
> > a *code* generator, supposedly.
>
> Whoops! A little Freudian slip there. In truth, I don't
> want to be mean. I'm just trying to be honest in my reaction.
> If the *first* thing I try shows a basic misunderstanding of
> IDL code generation, then my confidence in what comes next
> is not high.
>
> I'll probably try it again, but I'm out of the office for
> a week and...
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.dfanning.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

David,

   OK, no mas! :) I understand that you don't believe it has much
value. However, my honest opinion is just the opposite of yours. The
code generator has been working very well for me with minimal fuss --
it really must be magic after all (?).
   I am wondering if anyone else has had a chance to form an opinion.

Bill

I for one really like it!  I'm already making up a wish list of new
features :)  Number one on that list is making it available for IDL
6.2 users (I have access to one machine running IDL 6.3, but my own
machines are stuck on 6.2 :( - it's a long story).  I can think think
of a lot of uses for it, and it's actually made me wonder why someone
hadn't thought of it before :)

Jeff

weclifton@gmail.com writes:

> I understand that you don't believe it has much
> value

That's not at all what I said. I said my confidence
is low, but I haven't had a chance to evaluate whether
it has value. I intend to do so...but not this week.

It's clear Eduardo has gone to a lot of work. I think
it is worth looking into and I plan to do that sometime
soon. But one of your questions was why no one was using
it. I think a partial answer to that is that is (1) it is
hard to find, (2) it doesn't work like you expect an
IDL program to work, and (3) the documentation leads
you into dead-ends. So far, with limited time on my
hands, I haven't gotten beyond that point.

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

On May 9, 10:00 am, David Fanning <n...@dfanning.com> wrote:
> weclif...@gmail.com writes:
> > I understand that you don't believe it has much
> > value
>
> That's not at all what I said. I said my confidence
> is low, but I haven't had a chance to evaluate whether
> it has value. I intend to do so...but not this week.
>
> It's clear Eduardo has gone to a lot of work. I think
> it is worth looking into and I plan to do that sometime
> soon. But one of your questions was why no one was using
> it. I think a partial answer to that is that is (1) it is
> hard to find, (2) it doesn't work like you expect an
> IDL program to work, and (3) the documentation leads
> you into dead-ends. So far, with limited time on my
> hands, I haven't gotten beyond that point.
>
> Cheers,
>
> David
>
> --
> David Fanning, Ph.D.
> Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
> Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming:http://www.dfanning.com/
> Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

David,

   You are absolutely correct wrt any comments regarding value -- I
guess that Freudian slip thing is contagious :)

Bill

I think that Eduardo makes object graphics more accessible than iTools
does, but his code generator has far less features than iTools.
I remember providing feedback to ITTVIS that I would like to see a
simpler implementation of iTools with less features, but easier to
understand.

Unfortunately, I won't use his code generator for two reasons:
1) The source code is not available, so I am a little hesitant to have
my development highly integrated with something to which I have no
control.
2) The code generated cannot be easily integrated into an event driven
program. I really need access to graphics objects from outside the
scope of scg_og.

Ruby on Rails is a good example of how to use code generation
effectively. They have things called 'scaffolds' which is the default
implementation of a module. You can then generate and tweak the code
for the module if your unhappy with the 'scaffold'.

Robbie

P.S. I find navigating the codebank almost impossible. I can't even
find my own software in there!
I just keep tabs on new additions
http://www.ittvis.com/codebank/search.asp?search=newsub&product=IDL