This directory contains the source code to supporting modules which are (hopefully) useful but which are not part of the "core" Maverik system.
These module may require manual configuration and/or the presence of additional software.
Avatar - the Maverik avatar.
This module does not require any configuration and is compiled by default. An example of its use and the features it provides can be found in examples/misc/avatar.
TDM - Three D Mice support.
This module contains source code to provide (hopefully) generic support for 6 DOF input devices/tracking technology, collectively called "Three D Mice".
The code in this module is independent of the input device used, i.e. given the status of a device; the maths of mapping it's position into the world coordinate frame; and, where applicable, rendering a cursor at this position; setting the orientation of the view direction to match that of the device; creating callbacks to allow objects to respond to events generated by the device; determining which object the device is pointing at etc...
The interface to the device to obtain it's status is provide by a separate dynamically loaded library which defines the following 4 functions: TDM_init, TDM_getPosition, TDM_getButtons and TDM_getEvent. These function respectively initialize the device, get it's position/orientation, button status and check for button events.
These routines could be little more than wrappers to the MR tookit with the "getButtons" and "getEvent" calls doing nothing if the device has no associated buttons. Alternatively, this functionality could be provided by some existing library or by something that came from the device's manufacturer.
Our home-made implementation of these functions is available for download from our ftp site and supports Polhemus FASTRAK and ISOTRAK II six degree of freedom trackers (optionally coupled to Division 3D mice); Ascension Flock of birds (ERC only); Spacetec SpaceBalls and SpaceOrb360s; Magellan Space Mouse; InterSense InterTrax 30 gyroscopic trackers; 5DT data gloves; and a serial Logitech Marble Mouse. This code is designed to work with our setup -- you will need to modify it for your site setup even if you have the same equipment, e.g. serial port and baud rates, transmitter orientation, number of Polhemus trackers, which trackers are associated with the mice? etc...
The main Maverik setup script takes the arguments --TDMPATH to indicate where TDM is installed. For example:
--TDMPATH=/usr/local/TDM-2.1
The mav_opt_TDMLib variable indicates which TDM library to dynamically load. For example:
mav_opt_TDMLib= "/usr/local/TDM-2.1/lib/libtdm-polhemus.so";
An example of using TDM can be found in examples/misc/TDM.
TR - Tiled Rendering support.
Brian Paul's OpenGL Tile Rendering Library is a mechanism for generating arbitrary resolution images without the need to allocate a full-sized image buffer in main memory. It works by subdividing the source image into an arbitrary number of tiles each of which is rendered at full window resolution. An application can process, for example, write to disk, each of the separate tiles.
Maverik can use this library to produce anti-aliased images by scaling the individual tiles and stitching them together to form an image the same size as the original. Alternatively, it can generate an arbitrary resolution image file.
The Tile Rendering Library is available via ftp from ftp ftp.mesa3d.org/mesa/misc/
To use the Tile Rendering library with Maverik you will first need to create a library file from the object file the TR compilation produces, i.e. you will need to do something like "ar rvs libtr.a tr.o".
The main Maverik setup script takes the arguments --TRINCL and --TRLIBS to indicate where to find the TR include and library file. For example:
--TRINCL=-I/home/people/cookj/tr-1.1
--TRLIBS=-L/home/people/cookj/tr-1.1 -ltr
An example of its use may be found in examples/misc/TR. To take a snap shot press Ctrl-F11 and follow the instructions.
This module is one of the few that can be meaningfully dynamically loaded into an existing application via the Ctrl-F12 key press.
VRAD - VRAD support.
This module provides support for displaying models that have been processed with the VRAD radiosity code [http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~gibsons]
Since this code is in-house, this module is of little interest to anyone else. An example of the type of model produced by VRAD can be found in demos/AIGLab (if you downloaded it).
VRML97 - VRML97 support
This module provides support for defining composite objects from VRML97 files. The code uses the free CyberVRML97 for C++ library by Satoshi Konno (http://www.cyber.koganei.tokyo.jp/top/index.html). VRML97 support is not enabled by default - you must specify its use when installing Maverik. See INSTALL file for more details. Only the geometry of VRML97 files is read, no attempt is made to parse scripts, URL's, viewpoints etc... Furthermore, not all of the numerous ways in which the geometry can be defined are supported, e.g. concave polygons, colour-per-vertex.
hud - a head up display
This module implements a simple head up display. See the corresponding example in the misc directory for how to use it.
lwo - Lightwave support
This module provides support for defining composite objects from Lightwave files. The following features are currently un-supported: doublesided surfaces, textures and smoothing thresholds.
SR - Speech Recognition support
This module provides support for speech recognition. It aims to provide an application with an abstracted interface to an underlying Speech Recognition engine. Currently its very much geared towards IBM's ViaVoice, the only engine we have tried it with.
Speech Recognition support using the ViaVoice engine is not enabled by default - you must specify its use when installing Maverik. See INSTALL file for more details. Note that this is current Linux only and you need the ViaVoice SDK installed.