Below is a collection of CAVE programming and "how-to-use" and "how-to-convert"
Web tutorials created since 1997. WARNING: Although I've updated these
web pages, many of this pages work only with older releases of software.
COMMENT: Although not required, we encourage students to use mountable 4.2G
R/W optical media if they are going to be working with very large data sets,
here are
instructions for using optical media.
To get accounts on the VE Lab computers and/or the CAVE for ESM4714 please
contact rkriz@vt.edu
Two different CAVE programming APIs are used at Virginia Tech: 1) EVL's CAVE-Lib and 2) Virginia Tech's DIVERSE API. Both can be used either in the CAVE or on the desktop computers in the VE Lab. We encourage students to develop CAVE applications using the desktop simulators available with both APIs. DIVERSE can be used both on the SGI Octanes (viz8 and tensor) and the Del-computers (glyph, pitr, and ok) running Linux.
Chad Wingrave, former CAVE-SLUGer, created a Web page tutorial on " Introduction to CAVE programming" for students who are novice C++ programmers and willing to learn UNIX. Ron Kriz provides an example of how to draw a "Glyph" of a fourth-order stiffness tensor (Cijkl) which is constructed from polygonal and vertice files using VRML, OpenGL (still under construction), and Performer.
Procedure on how to transfer a desktop Vega application into the CAVE.
Procedure on how to setup and run an AVS module in the CAVE.
Our group has organized a number of DIVERSE Workshops and posted these workshops on the Web for access. The most recent workshop contains a large number of examples that are designed to take the novice user through a set by step tutorial where examples can be copied from these workshop Web pages and into a shell. For the beginner (nonprogrammer) DIVERSE user the first day of this workshop included a tutorial on how to create simple VRML V1.0 models and how to load these models in the CAVE using DIVERSifly either in the CAVE or at a desktop computer using the CAVE-simulator.
The majority of our CAVE users are not programmers and simply want to use their existing 3D modeling software to create 3D models, convert these models into CAVE compatible format, and load these models into the CAVE and "walkthru" these models.
This section provides links and outlines how to transform AutoDesk 3D
Studio files into a CAVE file format.
Over the last two years we have observed that the
Interior Design Futures Laboratory (IDFL) and the College of Architecture
and Urban Studies VELab
here at Virginia Tech have been the biggest users of AutoDesk 3D
Studio and Max. The VELab created three workshops on
Introduction
to VE, From CAD to CAVE, Advanced Simulation. There has been several
Projects that have documented conversion of AutoDesk 3D Studio (*.3ds) files using third
party software (polytrans and NuGraf):
Below is a very simple procedure for converting 3DS files to inventor (*.iv) and performer binary (*.pfb) file formats. This conversion requires an executable file 3dsToIv which is installed on the VE-Viz Lab SGI Octanes. This conversion does not work well for all *.3ds files. Please refer to the more recent conversion procedures listed above that use NuGraf.
There are several projects that outline and give examples on how to convert AutoCAD files into CAVE compatible format. NOTE: these conversions may not work with the current versions of AutoCAD.
Return
to Visualization Home Page
http://www.sv.vt.edu/classes/ESM4714/cave/prgintro.html