February 20, 1993 The files contained within this directory are many of the pieces of the Fly! Demo, a landscape fly-over package designed by PCI Inc., of Ontario, Canada. They have kindly allowed us to upload their demo software to both of our archive sites, so people could peruse. The software Fly! is software that allows the user to fly over terrain data, on any UNIX computer equipped with an X-windows-compatible display. Supported machines include AUX, DEC, DG, HP, IBM, IG, KP, SCO, SGI, and SUN. We currently only have installed the software for DEC, HP, IBM, SGI, and SUN, in the assumption that relatively few others will be using Unix-based machines that aren't in this set. If you are interested in trying out the demos, but do not have access to any of these machines, please let the folks at PCI know, and I'm sure they'll do their best to get you a copy of the software that works on your machine. The folks at PCI have plans to develop Fly! into a full virtual reality application. Future enhancements to the product include support for the Spaceball, Virtual Technology's Cyberglove, and the Virtual Reseach Flight Helmet HMD. We will of course try to get demo versions of these, as well. :) Fly! displays terrain data in a perspective view, by default 320x200 (which can be changed easily). It will show the data in black and white, color, false color, or 3D via anaglyph (red/blue) glasses. Performance on the machines that I personally have tried range from about 1 to 8 frames per second, with the average being near 5. (Tests were performed on a DEC 5000, HP 9000, SGI 4-processor, and IBM RS/6000.) The demo reports that data can be read in from many file formats, including PCIDSK, TIFF, RAW, ISTAR, and ERDAS. Rendered scenes can also be saved to disk, and fly-overs can be recorded. Many other options can be tweaked-- see the manual for details. A description of the files contained here: Number of bytes Filename Description --------------- -------- ----------- 1096054 flyDEC.tar.Z Fly! Demo, for DEC workstations 338929 flyHP.tar.Z Fly! Demo, for HP workstations 726302 flyIBM.tar.Z Fly! Demo, for IBM workstations 2011329 flySGI.tar.Z Fly! Demo, for SGI workstations 1071212 flySUN.tar.Z Fly! Demo, for SUN workstations 85399 flydemo.ps.Z Fly! Demo Installation / User Guide 4761757 small.pix.Z Fly! dataset, one .pix file 1182031 tiny.pix.Z Fly! dataset, is necessary In order to get the software, you must anonymously ftp to one of our sites: Archive Host name Directory ----------------------- ------------- --------------- sci.virtual-worlds ftp.u.washington.edu public/virtual-worlds/ sci.virtual-worlds.apps kth.se pub/sci.virtual-worlds.apps/ Type "ftp" followed by the host name from your system prompt. Type the word "anonymous" for your username, and enter your username@hostname address for the password. Then type "cd" followed by the appropriate directory to gain access to the archive. Enter "cd fly" to go into the Fly! Demo archive. The files contained in this directory are all compressed, so you will need to now type the word "binary", so that the ftp program will properly download the software in the correct format. Choose the software appropriate for your system, and then retrieve it by entering the command "get filename", where "filename" is replaced by fly***.tar.Z, dependent on your system. After this is completed (it will take a few moments), also execute "get flydemo.ps.Z" and "get tiny.pix.Z" (and/or "get small.pix.Z"), to get the manual and dataset, respectively. Now the software should be on your home system. Type "quit" to exit the ftp program. To uncompress and unarchive the software on your home system, execute the following set of commands: (From here on, I'll use a * to denote your system type.) zcat fly*.tar.Z | tar xvf - uncompress flydemo.ps.Z uncompress tiny.pix.Z mv tiny.pix fly* (Optional: uncompress small.pix.Z; mv smallpix fly*) This last step is very important-- if you don't move the tiny.pix file into your fly*/ directory, the software will not load up the dataset properly. Now, you're ready to roll. You can print out the manual by executing the command "lpr -Pprinter flydemo.ps", where "printer" is a PostScript-compatible printing device (alternately, you could display the manual on your monitor using one of the many PostScript viewers freely available, like ghostview.) Type "cd fly*". You should now see a number of new files. Here are there uses: File name Purpose ------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------- README Usage description. fly Fly! Demo, no dataset loaded. flytiny Fly! Demo, tiny.pix dataset loaded, displayed in color. flytiny3d Fly! Demo, tiny.pix dataset loaded, displayed in stereo. flytinybw Fly! Demo, tiny.pix dataset loaded, displayed in black and white. flytinyfalse Fly! Demo, tiny.pix dataset loaded, displayed with false colors. flysmall Fly! Demo, small.pix dataset loaded, displayed in color. flysmall3d Fly! Demo, small.pix dataset loaded, displayed in stereo. flysmallbw Fly! Demo, small.pix dataset loaded,displayed in black and white. flysmallfalse Fly! Demo, small.pix dataset loaded,displayed with false colors. If your display variable is set, executing any of the fly programs will bring up the software on your X-terminal. For best performance, run the Fly! Demo by itself, on the tiny dataset, with as few other pieces of software running on the machine as possible. Also, it is best to run the software on an X-terminal directly connected to the running machine, so the network bottleneck isn't as bad. Lastly, the Fly! Demo is happiest when run under a Motif environment, i.e. mwm. We hope that you enjoy the software, please let me know if you have questions regarding installation, or PCI know if you'd like larger demo datasets or have questions regarding their product. ---Mark A. DeLoura Sci.virtual-worlds[.apps] co-moderator/librarian deloura@cs.unc.edu Software provided by: Karim Ismail Product Support Engineer PCI Enterprises 50 West Wilmot St. Richmond Hill, Ontario Canada L4B 1M5 Phone: (416) 764-0614 FAX: (416) 764-9604 Email: ismail@pci.on.ca