Subject: 3D-Filmstrip Version 6.2 is now available.
From: palais@math.brandeis.edu (Richard S. Palais)
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 18:06:45 -0500
November 16, 1996
Version 6.2 of 3D-Filmstrip has just been released for general
distribution. This is the first update since June,1996.
Below is the first part of the ReadMe file for 3D-Filmstrip.
=======
A.) WHAT IS IT?
3D-Filmstrip is a tool that aids in the visualization of
mathematical objects and processes. It runs under version 7 or
later of the MacOS and requires either a 680x0 cpu with an FPU
or else a PowerPC cpu (where it will run native).
3D-Filmstrip has algorithms for displaying mathematical objects from
many different "categories" (plane and space curves, surfaces, conformal
maps, polyhedra, ODE, waves) and for displaying various mathematical
processes associated with these categories. In addition, each category
has a "Gallery" of many pre-programmed objects from the category, and
also a way for the user to enter User Defined obects of the category. The
Gallery items are selected from a menu, while the user defined objects
are entered by editing algebraic expressions that define an object of the
category in a dialog.
Filmstrip was designed and programmed (in Object Pascal) by:
Richard S. Palais
Department of Mathematics
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02254
palais@math.brandeis.edu
Home Page: http://rsp.math.brandeis.edu/pub
The program is copyrighted, but there is a free license
to use it for non-commercial purposes in education and research.
B.) WWW and FTP Availability.
3D-Filmstrip has a Home Page on the Web, at the URL:
http://rsp.math.brandeis.edu/3D-Filmstrip_html/3D-FilmstripHomePage.html
and the latest released version is available by anonymous ftp at the URL:
ftp://rsp.math.brandeis.edu/pub
(which has a link on the 3D-Filmstrip Home page).
The ftp distribution is in Binhex format and includes the complete
documentation in TeX and html formats. It also includes many "settings"
files that illustrate objects and animations of special interest.
There is a "fat" compilation that will run both on 680x0 based Macs with
a floating point unit (fpu) and on PowerMacs, as well as slimmer "FPU" and
"PPC" compilations.
(Version 6.2 does not have the SANE compilation of earlier versions,
and therefor cannot run on non-PowerPC Macintoshes without floating
point hardware.)
There are currently four mirror ftp sites for the distribution of
3D-Filmstrip, in Europe, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
The URL's and site administrators are:
ftp://hensel.mathp6.jussieu.fr/dist/3D-Filmstrip/
Dominique Bernardi --- bernardi@mathp6.jussieu.fr
ftp://maths.adelaide.edu.au/pure/mmurray/3DFilmstrip
Michael Murray --- mmurray@spam.maths.adelaide.edu.au
ftp://math.ntu.edu.tw/pub/mac/mirror.rsp
Ai Nung Wang --- wang@math.ntu.edu.tw
ftp://ftp.math.cuhk.edu.hk/pub/mac/
Law Wai Kuen (Keith) --- keith@math.cuhk.edu.hk
------------
C) Documentation.
The documentation for 3D-Filmstrip consists of:
1) This file
2) 3D-Filmstrip_Doc.tex (Complete documentation in TeX format)
3) Hypertext documentation in html format, consisting of:
a) 3D-FilmstripHomePage.html
b) 3D-Filmstrip_Doc.html (a Table of Contents page)
c) IndexPage.html (an Index Page)
d) Twenty-five html pages of actual documentation
e) Nine .GIF files.
All of the above documentation is included with the standard ftp
distribution and in addition there is a link to an online version of
the html documentation starting from the 3D-Filmstrip Home Page.
Most of the information in the above documentation can also be accessed
as Help panels while 3D-Filmstrip is running. These can be selected from
the Balloon Help menu.
====================================================================
The remainder of this file is a version history, describing what
is new in the current version and what was new in earlier versions.
Version History
---------------
What's new in Version 6.2 of 3D-Filmstrip. November 15, 1996
With this version of 3D-Filmstrip, the user interface has gotten a
major facelift. I would like to thank Mike Epstein and Xah Lee for
pushing me to make these changes, and working very hard with me in
the design and testing of the many new features.
There are also important mathematical additions to the program---but
most were made by my collaborators, Christopher Anand and Angel Montesinos.
Christopher considerably beefed up the Anand-Ward soliton segment of the
program, and added User Defined... solitons as well as documentation.
I am very pleased with this example of one extreme in the spectrum of
applications I had hoped that 3D-Filmstrip would be useful for, namely
as a tool in advanced mathematical research. Angel extended his marvelous
algorithm for implicitly defined plane curves to also work for implicit
space curves, and I needed to make only minor adaptions for his code to
work within 3D-Filmstrip. I added routines for displaying geometric objects
in the 3-Sphere. They are simply stereographically projected, and then
treated like any other object in R^3. In particular you will now find
the Hopf fibration in the Space Curve menu, and the Clifford torus in
the Surface menu.
Here is a list of changes to the user interface:
1) There is a new application icon (Mike Epstein helped with the design).
You may have to remake your desktop file to see it. (Have a look with
your stereo glasses on).
2) Settings files and Grand Tour files now have their own distinctive icons,
and double-clicking will open them (after launching 3D-Filmstrip if it
isn't already running).
3) Command-O = Open Settings File
Command-S = Save Settings
Command-W closes Help Window and dialog windows
Command-U opens User Defined... dialogs
4) Cancel buttons have been added to dialogs.
5) Surface rendering now defaults to color.
6) Many changes to the View menu, to make it more intuitive for new users.
7) You can now omit the * for multiplication when writing expressions in
User Defined... dialogs (but remember to put in spaces to avoid ambiguity).
8) You can now also use "split definitions" in expressions, giving them
different
values on different parts of the domains of their variables. The syntax is:
case : ; : ; . . . end
For example:
case x>0: ln(x); x<=0: 1 end
(The final ; is optional.)
9) You can now signal a fast abort either with Command-period as before,
or by pressing the Escape key.
10) The "Virtual Sphere" button that used to inhabit the lower left
hand corner of the screen is gone.
That is because the program is now always in Virtual Sphere mode.
For example, after drawing a Surface you can immediately click on
it and start rotating it. The rotation happens in wireframe by default,
but if you put down Caps-lock it happens in patch mode (at reduced
resolution). Moreover if, while you are rotating, you hold down the
Control key, the cursor changes to four arrows and you can now translate
the object in a plane parallel to the screen. If instead you hold down
Shift, then the cursor changes to an up-down arrow and you can "zoom" the
object toward or away from you. In essence, you can move along an
arbitrary
path in the Euclidean group, and have the object "follow along".
The same thing works in the Plane curve and Conformal map categories,
except the default movement is translation instead of rotation. Morever,
in these two categories, if you hold down Command and then drag out a
rectangle in the usual Mac way, then when you release the mouse (with
Command still down) your selection rectangle will zoom to the entire
window.
11) There used to be a special version of Virtual Sphere mode in which
an object spins about an axis that you could change interactively by
rotating it with the mouse. The old way of entering that mode was by
putting Caps-lock down before clicking on the Virtual Sphere button,
and you stayed in that mode until the Caps-lock key was released.
This has now been renamed to Spin mode. You enter it by selecting
Spin at the bottom of the Animate menu, and exit it by fast abort
(i.e., either Command-period or Escape). For surfaces, the spin will
be in wireframe if Caps-lock is up and in Patch mode if it is down.
12) If you are connected to the Internet and have the System Extension
Internet Config installed in your Extensions Folder, then you will
have two extra items at the bottom of your Balloon Help menu when
3D-Filmstrip is active; namely "Download Latest Version" and
"3D-Filmstrip Home Page". Of course, for these to work, you must have
available an ftp program (such as Fetch or Anarchie) and a Web Browser
(such as Netscape Navigator) and you must have chosen one of each as
your preference using the Helper Dialog of the Internet Config program.
--
Richard S. Palais
Dept. of Mathematics, Brandeis Univ.
Waltham, MA 02254
palais@math.brandeis.edu
http://rsp.math.brandeis.edu
