VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Fri May 16 2003 - 10:11:15 CDT

Hi Will,
  Your VMD-L post bounced this morning, you have to be subscribed in order
to post (prevents spammers from taking over...)
In answer to your question, yes, we've been working on a new form of
programmer's guide which replaces the old one you've probably seen in
the past:
  http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/doxygen/

Not everything one would want is there yet, but I'm slowly working on it
as time permits.

Regarding alpha-blended transparency:
  I've actually already implemented a multi-pass alpha-blended transparency
feature in VMD. It uses the Sun Global Alpha extension for efficiency.
The difficulty you'll run into in doing it without this extension is that
ALL of the vertex colors have to be re-specified in terms of the new alpha
value. In any case, if you checkout the code from CVS, you can see the
alpha-blended transparency code in the latest version. It is enabled at
runtime by an environment variable, VMDUSEGALPHA, when the global alpha
extension if found.

Regarding the use of the CAVE wand:
  Implementing a real GUI in the CAVE is going to be a bit of work.
It should be doable, but not the most fun thing you've ever done.
Once VMD 1.8.1 is out the door and I'm back to working on improving
features etc instead of fixing bugs, I may have time to extend the
capabilities of the CAVE wand buttons, Spaceballs, etc, so that they
can run arbitrary user scripts like "user add key" allows when running
the normal non-CAVE version of VMD on a workstation.

If you'll be here for the summer school, I can meet with you and we
can discuss the mods you guys have in mind.

Thanks,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 09:10:54AM -0500, owner-vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu wrote:
> Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 10:10:16 -0400
> From: Will Sheffler <william_Sheffler_at_brown.edu>
> To: vmd-l_at_ks.uiuc.edu
> Subject: VMD mods for CAVE
>
> Hello VMD folks.
>
> I'm running a project over this summer at our CAVE facility to improve
> our use of VMD. Some of the things we're proposing to do may require
> delving into the VMD source, and I wanted to get your input.
>
> Is there still a VMD programmers guide available?
>
> We would like to have alpha channel transparency. I read a previous
> newsgroup post which outlined a quick and dirty approach with two pass
> rendering. How difficult would such a thing be to implement? What
> portions of the source would require modification?
>
> We would like to be able to use the CAVE wand as a pointer to interact
> with the standard VMD menu system. Ideally, we would have a "tool"
> where the wand would project a pointer onto the CAVE wall, and a way
> to toggle between tools with a button on the wand. Does this sound
> feasible?
>
> I will be at UIUC for the simulation summer school this june 2-13.
> Would it be possible for me to meet with someone who knows the VMD
> source code at some point during my stay?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Will Sheffler
> Center for Advanced Scientific Computation and Visualization
> Brown University
>
> 

-- 
NIH Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Email: johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu                 Phone: 217-244-3349              
  WWW: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/      Fax: 217-244-6078