From: Paul Gilsdorf Subject: HOME-BREW: 3D programming on a PC Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 16:23:23 -0600 Message-ID: I'm ready to do some 3D programming on a PC and am looking for advice on where to start. Specifically, I need to do some stereoscopic VR work involving a simple dot moving in 3-space. The user will be wearing a VIO's i-glasses with head tracker, and the dot's movement will be a function of head position and eye position among other things. I may get "fancier" later and add an artificial horizon or who knows what else. The user will not be roaming around as is typical in VR, but be largely be in one place. This is for medical research to study eye tracking and also the relationship of vision to balance. The VR world seems to be going in the direction of elaborate, largely static worlds that one walks around, which is not what I need. AVRIL is the perfect solution for me, except for the fact that I can't get it to work with the VIO head tracker, so I've sadly abandoned that approach. Right now, I see five choices on how to proceed. I'd like some help from those more experienced than I to point me in the right direction on this. a) Write everything mostly from scratch. (I could use the largely uncommented sample code I received with the VIO developer's kit as a starting point.) b) OpenGL c) QuickDraw 3D d) VRML2 e) something I don't know about yet. I at the time have little to no interest in texture mapping, shading, elaborate world generation, or compatibility with anything involving the internet. I do have great interest in strong realtime control over objects via C code, speed, and precise stereoscopic viewing including control over such things as interocular distance, and just general low-level flexibility. So, what do you think? Thanks in advance, Paul Gilsdorf