From: tmarshall01@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Phigs-like packgefor the PC
Date: 29 Sep 91 07:25:40 +0800
Message-ID: <1991Sep29.072540.9907@cc.curtin.edu.au>
Organization: Curtin University of Technology


I read with interest Richard Ottolini's mention of a book on Virtual Reality
by Howard Reingold. Unfortunately I missed the initial critique. On the 
Topic of VR most medium or better quality works - particularly those 
that take an overview of the subject VR or better still provide some 
 framework for the subject would, I think, do a great service to the many
 (incuding myself) who are intrigued with the bits and pieces of ideas
 coming forward so creatively in this area, but find it difficult to 
 explain to oneself , let alone to others what the field is about 
and whwere we arenow - or at least were , say, one year ago.

 Regarding  a pc Phigs , Addison Wesley has a book byfoley, van Dam etc
 ( a classic in its first addition and i think keeps the standard up in
 their new 1175 page book on computer graphics - obviously very comprehensive
 particularly on 3-D interactive graphics. With the book comes the 
 SRGP/SPHIGS package with which you can try out most of the principles
 and practice mentioned in the book. 
 To quote Andries van Dam and David F. Sklar CH 2 of the text, 

  "SRGP (simple Raster Grahics Package) is a device independent graphics
    graphics package that exploits raster capabilities. SRGP's repertoire
   of primitives (lines,rectangles,circles and ellipses and text strings) 
  is similarto tht of the popularMacintosh Quickdraw raster package and that
  of the Xlib package ofthe XWindow System. Its interaction handling 
 features, on the other hand, are a subset of those of SPHIGS, the higher

 level graphics package for displaing 3D primitives.SPHIGS (Simple PHIGS)
 is a simplfied dialect of the standard Phigs Graphics package
 (Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System) designed for both
 Raster and Vector hardware. Although SRGP and SPHIGS were written specifically
 for this text, they are also very much in the mainstream graphics packages
....


 SRGP/SPHIGS is available thru Addison Wesley for $14.95. Platforms it 
 can run on are Unix, X11, Macintosh and the iBM PC family.

 Hope that info helps

 Peter Marshall
 Information Systems school
 Curtin University 
 PERTH
 WESTERN AUSTRALIA.