Meeting Purpose:

Agenda for 01 March 2006 Shape Tools meeting

Review prior weeks to do items

• [-] - Craig - complete surface normals calcluations.
• [-] - Craig - extend CGALFaceSet to non-triangular mesh surfaces
• [x] - Craig - research whether Off format supports arbitrary attributes (per-vertex, per-face)
  Answer:
  No
  See: http://www.geomview.org/docs/html/geomview_41.html
• [ ] - Craig - add more examples of reading data from a Shape into matlab data structures to the mShape project.
• [ ] - Craig - revise CGALFaceSet to avoid recursion when Euler number is calculated.
• [ ] - Craig - add support for writing arbitrary attributes, either in OFF (if supported), or find another way.
• [ ] - Craig - JNI interface to ShapeTools
• [ ] - Craig - continue work on 'native' ShapeTools file format
• [ ] - Craig - Yalin file format reader
• [ ] - Jeff - implement basic command set: load url, set affine transform.
• [ ] - Jeff - solve security issues.
• [ ] - Bae Cheol - first draft of user manual
• [ ] - Bae Cheol - update ShapeCurvature with faster methods/classes from Craig when available
• [ ] - Bae Cheol - user interface spec. for an appl. to apply an Air transform to a Shape

New Business

• more file formats : Alex suggests that the "igis" and "step" formats are widely used.

Discussed

• vertex normal calculation
  • Craig has completed porting from C to Java, but tests fail with various calculation errors. These also occur in the C version. Possibly Craig is not correctly using the methods. Craig has suspended work on this pending expert counsel, and has instead continued working on reading and writing the OpenDX file format.
  • Duygu suggests that the best method is to average the normals of incident faces.
• open dx file format reader/writer
  • meshes defined by "positions" and "connections" may be read.
  • Craig explained why he does prefers storing surface attributes as explicit data attributes (instead of using the commonly found 'color' attribute).
• ShapeViewer (client/server)
  • 1 client and server on same computer now communicate.
  • "load url" works
  • Clients now support three server methods: "log in", "log out", "update".
  • simplest architecture ( "server broadcasts to client") implemented. Once a client contacts the server to log in,Jeff asserts the connection is permanently available for server to send to client. Craig is dubious.
  • Craig thinks a goal of supporting 25 clients, in remote locations, would be a good initial performance target.
  • Craig suggests immediate testing wth mulitple clients to find unanticipated difficulties.
  • Jeff suggests RMI as client/server protocol. Craig dissents, citing real-world firewall concerns & our experience with the Pipeline.
  • Jeff reports that security issues are not a concern, as he will only implement certain commands to be called by the server.
  • A list of defined commands would be very useful.

Decisions

To do for Next meeting

• Craig - Complete OpenDX read/write (positions+connections surfaces)
• Craig - extend CGALFaceSet to polygons not triangular.
• Craig - test Matlab use: create Shape, display with ShapeViewer.
• Jeff - send Craig a copy of the ShapeViewer that supports calling with a Shape
• Jeff - test with multiple clients, on different machines.
• Jeff - make a list on the wiki showing a table of the viewer command language.
• BaeCheol - complete user guide for ShapeCurvature