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SGI performer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Archive-name: sgi/faq/performer
Last-modified: Wed Oct 20 1:00:04 CDT 1999
Posting-Frequency: Twice monthly
URL: http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/

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    SGI performer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

This is one of the Silicon Graphics FAQ series, which consists of:

    SGI admin FAQ - IRIX system administration
    SGI apps FAQ - Applications and miscellaneous programming
    SGI audio FAQ - Audio applications and programming
    SGI diffs FAQ - Changes to the other FAQs since the last posting
    SGI graphics FAQ - Graphics and user environment customization
    SGI hardware FAQ - Hardware
    SGI impressario FAQ - IRIS Impressario
    SGI inventor FAQ - IRIS Inventor
    SGI misc FAQ - Introduction & miscellaneous information
    SGI movie FAQ - Movies
    SGI performer FAQ - IRIS Performer
    SGI pointer FAQ - Pointer to the other FAQs
    SGI security FAQ - IRIX security

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Topics covered in this FAQ:
---------------------------
   -1- ================ General Topics ==================
   -2- What is IRIS Performer?
   -3- Where can I get more technical information about IRIS Performer?
   -4- Where can I get more product information about IRIS Performer?
   -5- The IRIS Performer mailing list
   -6- The IRIS Performer FTP Archives
   -7- The IRIS Performer WWW Pages in Silicon Surf
   -8- The IRIS Performer Technical Report
   -9- How does IRIS Performer relate to IRIS Inventor?
  -10- What version of IRIS Performer should I use?
  -11- What patches should be used with IRIS Performer?
  -12- What version of IRIS Performer am I currently running?
  -13- What are all of the released versions of IRIS Performer?
  -14- Does IRIS Performer use IRIS GL or OpenGL?
  -15- Is there a IRIS Performer file format?
  -16- What database file formats can IRIS Performer read?
  -17- Is there an IRIS Inventor file reader for IRIS Performer?
  -18- What are the .tlf files used by the Performer Town and Village?
  -19- What are the minimum requirements for using IRIS Performer?
  -20- Binary Compatibility on different machines
  -21- Binary Compatibility on different releases
  -22- Guaranteeing Real Time performance
  -23- How do I make GL calls from within a IRIS Performer program?
  -24- How do I overlay graphics on top of my Performer scene?
  -25- What is the difference between phases FREE, FLOAT, and LOCK?
  -26- Use of PFTMPDIR to configure shared memory
  -27- Which rendering primitives does IRIS Performer support?
  -28- How do I do triangle meshes in Performer?
  -29- ================= Known Problems =================
  -30- Video Rate sometimes reported incorrectly
  -31- Problems with Performer Town or Village demos
  -32- Antialiasing
  -33- Coplanar Polygons & pfDecal on certain platforms
  -34- Networked graphics (DGL & GLX)
  -35- Transparency
  -36- Gangdraw and cursor loading
  -37- Frame control on low- and mid-range machines
  -38- Timing on pre-1992 platforms
  -39- 2.0 Warnings from ld when building on IRIX 6.2
  -40- 2.0 Bug OpenGL functions missing when building static executables
  -41- 2.0 Bug Z buffer problems when moving windows on 5.3 EXtreme
  -42- 2.0 Bug Use of more than 512 simultaneous textures
  -43- 2.0 Bug IRIS GL on dual-head systems
  -44- 2.0 Bug Resizing of pfPipeWindows in MP X apps
  -45- 2.0 Bug Applying frustums transformed by pfOrthoXformFrust
  -46- 2.0 Bug pfFlatten with pfCycleBuffer attribute arrays
  -47- 2.0 Bug Sorting lights with pfChanBinSort()
  -48- 2.0 Bug OpenGL disables back material modes
  -49- 2.0 Bug CPU statistics in IRIX 6
  -50- 2.0 Bug pfdLoadFile_flt FLT loader in IRIX 6
  -51- 2.0 Bug hello sample program in IRIX 6
  -52- 2.0 Bug Forked X input handing in IRIX 6.2
  -53- 2.0 Bug Intersections with pfBillboard nodes
  -54- 2.0 Bug Channel fade LOD attributes & mixed gfx configs
  -55- 2.0 Bug libpfui C API incomplete
  -56- 2.0 Bug libpfdb pfdLoadFile_dxf incomplete
  -57- 2.0 Bug libpfdb pfdLoadFile_sgo incomplete
  -58- 2.0 Bug IRIS GL perfly on Indy
  -59- 2.0 Bug pguide/libpf/C/pipewin sample program
  -60- 2.0 Bug pguide/libpf/C/lpstate sample program
  -61- 2.0 Bug pfInitClock() and Video Rate on 250MHz IMPACT
  -62- 1.2 Bug Billboard normals and intersections
  -63- 1.2 Bug Incompatibility with IRIX 6.1 XFS
  -64- 1.2 Bug Billboards with multiple pfGeoSets
  -65- 1.2 Bug Flattening transformation hierarchies
  -66- 1.2 libpf Bug Hang on Exit, 5.2 VGX
  -67- 1.2 libpf Cull with overlapped draw latency
  -68- 1.2 libpf Cull with overlapped draw hang
  -69- 1.2 libpf Transparency Sorting
  -70- 1.2 libpf Multiple EarthSky fog
  -71- 1.2 libpf Bug Limit Phase
  -72- 1.2 libpr Highlighting when using wireframe
  -73- 1.2 libpf APPCULLDRAW does not honor LIMIT/FLOAT/LOCK phases
  -74- 1.2 libpf Phase toggling overlapped cull and draw
  -75- 1.2 libpf pfDataPool warning on exit
  -76- 1.2 libpf Multi-channel stats warning messages
  -77- 1.2 libpf Video warnings on Indy when multiprocessed
  -78- 1.2 stats Frame statistics for lightpoints
  -79- 1.2 stats Pixel fill statistics under 4.0.5 on RealityEngine
  -80- 1.2 libpr Directional pfLightPoints
  -81- 1.2 libpfutil pfuCollide is jerky
  -82- 1.2 libpfutil pfuSaveImage broken
  -83- 1.2 libpfsgi pfLoadDxf loader is incomplete
  -84- 1.2 libpfsgi pfLoadIv loader is incomplete
  -85- 1.2 GLX Overlay text with GLX on 4.0.5
  -86- 1.2 GLX Toggling antialiasing with GLX on 4.0.5 RealityEngine
  -87- 1.2 GLX Toggling antialiasing with GLX on any RealityEngine
  -88- 1.2 GLX on 4.0.5 Indigo, sample programs hang on startup.
  -89- 1.2 samples smallfly drive models broken
  -90- 1.2 samples pickfly drops core under abuse
  -91- 1.2 samples detail example broken on 4.0.5
  -92- 1.2 friends Belvis makefile requires pmake
  -93- 1.2 friends Toon has bad models and textures
  -94- 1.2 docs pfuGetGLXWin wrong on reference page
  -95- 1.2 docs pfuLockDownApp gives the incorrect location
  -96- 1.1 Bug with FP underflow
  -97- 1.1 Bug with Multipipe Onyx
  -98- 1.1 Bug Installing on Indy or Indigo2 XL
  -99- 1.1 Bug Unable to determine Indy graphics type
 -100- 1.1 Bug perfly cannot find libpf.so on Indy running 5.1
 -101- 1.1 Bug perfly FP error messages in 5.0.1
 -102- 1.1 Bug Installation on IRIX 5.2 - missing prerequisites
 -103- 1.0/1.1 Bug intersections with pfSwitch'es
 -104- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfTexture()
 -105- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfAntiAlias()
 -106- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfFlatten()
 -107- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfSequences
 -108- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfClosestPtOnPlane()
 -109- 1.0/1.1 Bug on ELAN/XS with wireframe PFGS_QUADS
 -110- 1.0/1.2-IRIX4 Bug Z buffer configuration on 4.0.5 RealityEngine
 -111- 1.0 Bug pfInit(): mmap failed for /dev/zero
 -112- 1.0 Doc Bug in pfMakePolarSeg() man page
 -113- 1.0 Doc Bug in pfDispList() man page
 -114- 1.0 Doc Bug in PFPG (simple.c)
 -115- 1.0 Bug in pfGetTime()
 -116- 1.0 Bug in pfNodeBBox()
 -117- 1.0 Bug in pfInitGfx() with Z-buffer on RealityEngine
 -118- 1.0 Bug in libpfflt combineLODs()
 -119- 1.0 Bug with two-sided material and pfMtlColorMode()
 -120- 1.0 Bug in pfFilePath()
 -121- 1.0 Bug in pfGetCurGState()
 -122- 1.0 Bug in pfGetCurState()
 -123- 1.0 Bug with cloned scenes
 -124- 1.0 Bug intersections in collide.c
 -125- 1.0 Bug with flattened pfLightPoints
 -126- 1.0 Bug intersections with pfSequences
 -127- 1.0 Bug intersections with non-indexed quads


Subject: -1- ================ General Topics ================== Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST
Subject: -2- What is IRIS Performer? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST IRIS Performer provides a powerful and extensible programming interface (with ANSI C and C++ bindings) for creating real-time visual simulation and other interactive graphics applications. IRIS Performer 2.0 supports both the IRIS Graphics Library (IRIS GL) and the industry standard OpenGL graphics library; these libraries combine with the IRIX operating system and REACT extensions to form the foundation of a powerful suite of tools and features for creating real-time visual simulation applications on Silicon Graphics systems. IRIS Performer is an integral part of the Onyx/Onyx2 RealityEngine & InfiniteReality and Indigo2/Octane Impact graphics systems and provides interfaces to advanced features of RealityEngine-class graphics. IRIS Performer is compatible with uniprocessor and multiprocessor SGI graphics platforms and attains maximum performance on all. IRIS Performer provides an extensible basis for creating real-time 3D graphics applications in the fields of visual simulation, entertainment, virtual reality, broadcast video, and computer aided design. IRIS Performer is the flexible, intuitive, toolkit-based solution for developers who want to optimize performance on Silicon Graphics systems. IRIS Performer consists of two main libraries, libpf and libpr, and four associated libraries, libpfdu, libpfdb, libpfui, and libpfutil. The basis of IRIS Performer is the performance rendering library libpr, a low level library providing high speed rendering functions based on pfGeoSets, efficient graphics state control using pfGeoStates, and other application- neutral functions. Layered above libpr is libpf, a real-time visual simulation environment providing a high-performance multi-processing database rendering system that takes best advantage of IRIS symmetric multiprocessing CPU hardware. The database utility library libpfdu provides powerful functions for defining both geometric and appearance attributes of three dimensional objects, encourages sharing of state and materials and generates efficient triangle strips from independent polygonal input. The database library libpfdb uses the facilities of libpfdu, libpf, and libpr to import database files in many popular industry standard database formats. These loaders also serve as a guide to developers creating new database importers. libpfui contains user interface building blocks for creating manipulators common to many interactive applications. This library has both a C and C++ API and is GL independent. Completing the suite of libraries is libpfutil, the IRIS Performer utility library. It provides a collection of important convenience routines implementing such diverse tasks as smoke effects, MultiChannel Option support, graphical user interface tools, X and IRIS GL event collection and management, and traversal functions. For aid in application development, IRIS Performer includes sample application source code ranging from simple programs to illustrate particular features to the comprehensive, GUI-driven file viewer perfly. In addition to these SGI-developed tools, IRIS Performer also includes a very large repository of sample code, databases, games, and movies contributed by the Friends of Performer: companies and individuals with services of general interest to the IRIS Performer community. We encourage you to sample their wares.
Subject: -3- Where can I get more technical information about IRIS Performer? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The three best resources for additional information are: - The IRIS Performer mailing list - The IRIS Performer FTP Archives - The Performer WWW pages in Silicon Surf - The IRIS Performer Technical Report See below for further information.
Subject: -4- Where can I get more product information about IRIS Performer? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST For product information about IRIS Performer or SGI Visual Simulation issues contact Ralph Humphries (ralphh@asd.sgi.com). To learn about SGI Virtual Reality solutions contact Joshua Mogal (mogal@asd.sgi.com). To just give in and buy a copy call SGI Direct at 1-800-800-7441 (product SC4-PERF-2.0), or to have both a demonstration and a presentation call your local SGI sales office. Brochure-style information about IRIS Performer is also available from the Performer WWW pages in Silicon Surf (see below)
Subject: -5- The IRIS Performer mailing list Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The IRIS Performer mailing list is a resource for developers who are using IRIS Performer to maximize the performance of their graphics applications on Silicon Graphics hardware. The list is an unmoderated, free-form discussion of IRIS Performer with issues both technical and non-technical; and provides feedback to Silicon Graphics about the product. Much like the comp.sys.sgi.* newsgroups, it is not an official support channel but is monitored by the IRIS Performer development team, so it's an excellent source of early information about upcoming events and product features, as well as a venue for asking questions and having them answered. To become a subscriber to the IRIS Performer mailing list you must send email to: info-performer-request@sgi.com New subscribers are added "by hand". Once your request is processed you will recieve submission/posting instructions, some guidelines, and a current copy of the Performer Frequently-Asked-Questions (FAQ) list. The mailing list has become rather large and carries several hundred messages per month. A performer newsgroup with a gateway to the mailing list may be created if there is enough interest. Mailing list archives are available in the Performer FTP area (see below) in ftp://sgigate.sgi.com/pub/Performer/monthly-archives/
Subject: -6- The IRIS Performer FTP Archives Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST An archive of Performer-related material is available via anonymous FTP: ftp://sgigate.sgi.com/pub/Performer Current Contents: README - Overview file FAQ - The Performer FAQ INFO-PERFORMER - information about the Performer mailing list src/ - Sample source code & misc patches docs/ - IRIS Performer docs including SIGGRAPH '94 paper selected-topics/ - directory of info, Q&A, etc from mailing list monthly-archives/ - raw archives (monthly) of the mailing list CortaillodCentre/ - goodies from SGI's Cortaillod Office RealityCentre/ - goodies from SGI's RealityCentre in the UK
Subject: -7- The IRIS Performer WWW Pages in Silicon Surf Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Silicon Surf (http://www.sgi.com/) contains an archive of Performer-related technical and promotional material in the _Extreme Tech_ section. http://www.sgi.com/Technology/Performer contains links to further information regarding: - What is IRIS Performer ? - IRIS Performer 2.0 Technical Information - IRIS Performer 2.0 Product Information - IRIS Performer Friends, Goodies, & Free Stuff! - The IRIS Performer Mailing List - The IRIS Performer Anonymous FTP Archives - The IRIS Performer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).
Subject: -8- The IRIS Performer Technical Report Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The IRIS Performer 2.0 Technical Report (IRIS-PERF-TR-10/95) is available in hardcopy from your local Silicon Graphics sales office. An electronic copy (Postscript format) is also available via FTP from: ftp://sgigate.sgi.com/pub/Performer/docs/pf2.0techreport/
Subject: -9- How does IRIS Performer relate to IRIS Inventor? Date: 26 Jun 93 00:00:01 EST The short answer is, Performer was designed for vis-sim, while Inventor was designed to be more general purpose. IRIS Performer is for developers who need to extract maximum performance from SGI machines for visual simulation, virtual reality, game development, and high-end CAD systems. Often these applications need multi-processor Onyx systems with multiple RealityEngine pipelines with a high degree of parallelism and running at fixed frame rates. Inventor is designed for maximum programmer productivity when writing other kinds of 3D applications, like modelling, animation, visualization, etc. Both toolkits are general purpose enough that they could be extended into the domain of the other, but the question you should consider is "what is the *fundamental* goal of my graphics development?" If it's portability to non-SGI systems, easy X-window system integration, or handy graphic widgets, IRIS Inventor is for you. If it's brochure- level performance in advanced graphic applications for the specific domains listed above, then IRIS Performer would be the likely tool.
Subject: -10- What version of IRIS Performer should I use? Date: 16 Oct 97 00:00:01 EST The short answer is that IRIS Performer 2.0 is the latest all-platform release and 2.1 is the InfiniteReality (all flavors - Onyx, Onyx2, iR Reality) release. If you are doing development for an application targeted primarily at an InfiniteReality graphics platform using InfiniteReality features, you should buy 2.1. You can run 2.1 on any platform running IRIX 6.2 or later, but its only benefit over 2.0 was features for the InfiniteReality graphics platform. IRIS Performer also creates and ships binary compatible bug-fix upgrades for the execution environment of the main releases. These maintenance releases have a third field in their number string and are binary compatible with the base release. These upgraded execution environments include the optimized DSOs and demo executables and are shipped with IRIX releases and made available for older IRIX releases through patches. The following table lists the latest versions of our releases and the version of IRIX that they shipped with and the corresponding patch number. Performer Maintenance Releases: performer_eoe shipped in IRIX available in Patch for IRIX Releases ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *** 2.0.4/2.1.2(*) 6.4 1696 6.2 and later 2.0.3/2.1.1(*) 6.3 2.0.2 1347 6.2 and later 2.0.1 6.2 (*) The 2.1.X upgrades are included as 2.1 compatibility subsystems inside the corresponding 2.0.X version. This is done to allow upgrades for both releases to ship inside IRIX. (***) this is the latest maintenance version check it out! All InfiniteReality systems (Onyx, Onyx2, ir Reality) running IRIX 6.2 or later should use IRIS Performer 2.1 (eoe and dev). Note that Performer 2.1 was originally only officially supported on Onyx InfiniteReality systems and is only of benefit on those system or for doing development for those systems. Other systems and projects not targeted at InfiniteReality should use 2.0 eoe and 2.0 dev, plus the latest eoe upgrade or patch as indicated above. Patches available for IRIS Performer development subsystems: (also see later section on patches) There have are 2 patches available for the Performer 2.0 development subsystems (sample source code, header files, debug and static libraries) that correspond to the 2.0.2 eoe maintenance release: patch 1392 IRIX 6.2 and later patch 1414 for IRIX 5.3 (contains dev and eoe) These patches are for the 2.0 development subsystems _only_. Do not attempt to install them if running any other base release for development.
Subject: -11- What patches should be used with IRIS Performer? Date: Wed Sep 22 16:26:21 CDT 1999 performer_eoe: 6.4: No patches required for performer_eoe 2.0.4/2.1.2 6.3: Patch 1696 - updates Performer 2.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.3/2.1.1 to the 2.0.4/2.1.2 EOE shipped in IRIX 6.4 6.2: Patch 1696 - updates Performer 2.0 and 2.0.1, to the 2.0.4/2.1.2 EOE shipped in IRIX 6.4 5.3: Patch 1414 - updates Performer 2.0 eoe & dev -> 2.0.2. All versions of performer_eoe for 2.0[.X] are binary compatible. All versions of performer_eoe for 2.1[.X] are binary compatible. Patch 1696 updates all performer_eoe 2.0.x to 2.0.4 and all 2.1 to 2.1.2 Patch 1696 replaces patch 1347. performer_dev: All performer_dev 2.0 should be upgraded to at least performer_dev 2.0.2 for IRIX 6.2 and later IRIX releases. 6.4: Patch 1392 - updates Performer 2.0 DEV -> 2.0.2 DEV 6.3: Patch 1392 - updates Performer 2.0 DEV -> 2.0.2 DEV 6.2: Patch 1392 - updates Performer 2.0 DEV -> 2.0.2 DEV 5.3: Patch 1414 - updates Performer 2.0 eoe & dev -> 2.0.2. Patch 1392 IS for the 2.0 development subsystems _only_. Do not attempt to install it if running any other base release for development. performer_eoe 2.0.2 and 2.0.4 are both binary compatible with performer_dev 2.0[.X] All of the patches require a base subsystem from the IRIS Performer CD or from IRIX to be loaded first. Customers with SupportFolio online access can download patches from: http://www.sgi.com/support/patch_intro.html
Subject: -12- What version of IRIS Performer am I currently running? Date: 16 Oct 1997 00:00:01 EST To find out what release of IRIS Performer is currently installed on the system do: % versions | grep performer and you will see a list of all IRIS Performer subsystems that are currently installed. Note that you might see execution environments and compatibility DSOs for older releases of IRIS Performer -- this is what allows you to run any IRIS Performer executable, regardless of the development release you are currently using. To find out which version a given IRIS Performer DSO library is do: % elfdump -L lib.so | fgrep IVERSION and you will see the DSO version number of the library. Note: DSO version numbers are NOT the same as IRIS Performer product release numbers. DSO numbers are X.Y.Z where the X must change with each change in binary compatibility, where the Y changes to signify a binary compatible version, and the .Z is an additional tag. The mapping of IRIS Performer releases to DSO numbers is: IRIS Performer release DSO lib version ------------------------------------------- 1.0 sgi1.0 2.0 sgi2.0 2.0.1 sgi2.1 2.0.2 sgi2.2 2.0.3 sgi2.3 2.0.4 sgi2.4 2.1 sgi3.0 2.1.1 sgi3.1 2.1.2 sgi3.2 Each release of IRIS Performer includes the versioned DSO libraries from previous releases for each binary compatible group. Upon program startup, rld will find the proper version of the IRIS Performer library for the current executable. These DSOs are installed under /usr/lib/ and /usr/lib/Performer. ex: /usr/lib/libpf_ogl.so.2 /usr/lib/libpf_ogl.so.3 /usr/lib/libpf_ogl.so.4 % elfdump -L /usr/lib/libpf_ogl.so.2 | fgrep IVERSION [34] IVERSION sgi2.4 To find out which version a dynamically linked IRIS Performer executable was made with do: % elfdump -L progname and you will see a list of the DSOs required by the program and their DSO version number.
Subject: -13- What are all of the released versions of IRIS Performer? Date: 16 Oct 1997 00:00:01 EST Performer 2.0.4: performer_eoe 2.0 bug fix upgrade, shipped with IRIX 6.4 [equivalent updates in patch 1696 for 6.2 and later] Performer 2.1.2: performer_eoe 2.1 bug fix upgrade, shipped as compatibility libs in 2.0.4 in IRIX 6.4 and patch 1696 Performer 2.0.3: performer_eoe 2.0 bug fix upgrade, shipped with IRIX 6.3 Performer 2.1.1: performer_eoe 2.1 bug fix upgrade, shipped as compatibility libs in 2.0.3 in IRIX 6.3 Performer 2.1: InfiniteReality release, for all InfiniteReality systems running IRIX 6.2 or later, (eoe and dev) Performer 2.0.2: bug fix upgrade for Performer 2.0.1/2.0 eoe and dev, shipped in patches 1347(eoe)+1392(dev) (for IRIX 6.x) or patch 1414 (for IRIX 5.x) Performer 2.0.1: bug fix upgrade for 2.0 EOE update only, shipped in IRIX 6.2 Performer 2.0: All-platform release for IRIX 5.3 and later releases IRIS Performer 1.2/IRIX5: (obsolete) For IRIX 5.2, 5.3, 6.0.1, 6.1 IRIS Performer 1.2/IRIX4: (obsolete) For IRIX 4.0.5(A-J) only IRIS Performer 1.1: (obsolete) For IRIX 5.x only IRIS Performer 1.0: (obsolete) For IRIX 4.x only Patch 1696: performer_eoe updates Performer on IRIX 6.2 and 6.3 to the 2.0.4/2.1.2 shipped in IRIX 6.4. It updates 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.0.3 eoe to revs equiv to 2.0.4. It updates 2.1, 2.1.1 eoe to revs equiv to 2.1.2. Replaces 1347. Patch 1414: performer 2.0 eoe & dev patch for IRIX 5.3 only Patch 1392: performer_dev 2.0 patch for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4. Patch 1347: performer_eoe 2.0.1 patch for IRIX 6.2 only Historical/Background information: Note that the above list is included only for completeness' sake. Also note that you might not want "highest numbered" version of Performer, you want the the highest maintenance rev of your main release (2.1.X for InfiniteReality and 2.0 otherwise). Note that maintenance releases have been done for both 2.0 and 2.1 simultaneously. Systems running IRIX 6.2 or later should load the performer_eoe IRIX cd, and performer_dev from the Performer 2.0 CD. Then load the relevant patches as described below. The N32 and N64 libraries in Performer 2.0 are not intended for systems running IRIX 6.1. If you require N32 or N64 functionality, you need to upgrade to 6.2 (or above) and use 2.0.1 (or above). No further releases of Performer are planned for IRIX 4.x or 5.x. Performer 1.2 was shipped for both 4.0.5 and 5.2 systems. If you are using IRIS Performer 1.2, only install that version that is appropriate for your machine. The IRIS Performer version is indicated by the "IRIX4" or "IRIX5" string in each product name. IRIX4 products should only be installed on 4.0.5 systems. IRIX5 products can be installed on 5.2, 5.3, 6.0.1, and 6.1 systems. When a choice is possible between using Performer 1.2 with IRIX 5.x or IRIX 4.0.5, IRIX 5.x is highly preferable. IRIX 5.3 is the current operating system release and contains many bug fixes and enhancements utilized by IRIS Performer. IRIS Performer 1.2/IRIX4 was intended only for users who are unable to upgrade to IRIX 5.x.
Subject: -14- Does IRIS Performer use IRIS GL or OpenGL? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Performer 2.1 is OpenGL only, having bindings for O32 (32-bit) OpenGL, N32 (32-bit) OpenGL, and N64 (64-bit) OpenGL. IRIS Performer 2.0, 2.0.1, "2.0.2", 2.0.3, and 2.0.4 contain bindings for O32 IRIS GL, O32 OpenGL, N32 OpenGL, and N64 OpenGL. IRIS Performer 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 use IRIS GL (32-bit).
Subject: -15- Is there a IRIS Performer file format? Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST Yes. Performer "2.0.2", 2.0.3, 2.0.4, and 2.1 now include pfb (a fast-loading binary database format) support in libpfpfb. It also adds support of "pfa" format, a slow-loading ascii version of pfb. The 'pfconv' program can be used to convert other file formats to pfb. Prior releases do not have a Performer-specific file format.
Subject: -16- What database file formats can IRIS Performer read? Date: Thu Sep 30 16:55:07 CDT 1999 Performer "2.0.2", 2.0.3, 2.0.4, and 2.1 add support of the following two formats, in addition to those available in Performer 2.0: pfa: IRIS Performer ASCII format developed by Rob Mace pfb: IRIS Performer BINARY format (very fast) developed by Rob Mace IRIS Performer 2.0 and 2.0.1 contain direct import capabilities for: 3ds: AutoDesk 3DStudio binary data bin: Minor SGI format used by powerflip bpoly: Side Effects Software PRISMS binary byu: Brigham Young University CAD/FEA data dwb: Coryphaeus Software Designer's Workbench dxf: AutoDesk AutoCAD ASCII format flt11: MultiGen public domain Flight v11 format flt14: MultiGen OpenFlight v14 format gds: McDonnell-Douglas GDS things data gfo: Minor SGI format (radiosity output) im: Minor SGI format (IRIS Performer example) irtp: AAI/Graphicon Interactive Real-Time PHIGS iv: SGI OpenInventor / VRML 1.0 lsa: Lightscape radiosity solutions (ASCII) lsb: Lightscape radiosity solutions (binary) m: University of Washington mesh data medit: Medit Productions medit modeling tool nff: Eric Haines' ray tracing test data format obj: Wavefront Technologies data format post: Minor SGI format (example gridded terrain loader) phd: Minor SGI format (polyhedra) poly: Side Effects Software PRISMS ASCII data pts: University of Washington point data ptu: Minor SGI format (IRIS Performer example) s1k: US ARMY SIMNET databases (Texas Instruments) sgf: US NAVY standard graphics format sgo: Minor SGI format spf: US NAVY simple polygon format sponge: Sierpinski sponge 3D fractal generator star: Yale University compact star chart data stla: 3D Structures Stereolithography (ASCII) stlb: 3D Structures Stereolithography (binary) sv: Format of John Kichury's i3dm modeler tri: University of Minnesota Geometry Center data unc: University of North Carolina data Several other file formats will be available via translators: via Acuris Corporation translators (to OpenInventor): iges Old standard computer aided design interchange format alias Alias Research animation system data 3ds AutoDesk 3DStudio obj Wavefront Technologies OBJ format dxf AutoDesk AutoCAD format softimage Microsoft/Softimage animation system data via Clarus AB translators: step New standard computer aided design interchange format vertigo Vertigo animation system data via ViewPoint, http://www.viewpoint.com/, translators (to OpenInventor): 3D Studio, BRender, Alias polyset, CAD-3D, CADL, DXF, Imagine, Inventor, LightWave objects and scenes, MovieBYU, Haines NFF, Sense8 NFF, POV-Ray, Pro/ENGINEER, Prisms, RAW, RenderWare, Sculpt, SGI spin, Soft F/X, stereolithography, StyleGuide, Swivel, GDS "things", trueSpace, Vertigo, Vista DEM, VideoScape and Wavefront formats. IRIS Performer 1.2 includes loading utilities and file loaders for: - The SGI .bin, .sgo, .gfo, .poly, and .ptu formats - IRIS Inventor's .iv format. - Coryphaeus' Software .dwb format. - Software Systems (MultiGen Inc) Version 11, 13, and 14 .flt - The SuperViewer .sv format used in I3DM - Lightscape Graphics Software's .lsa and .lsb formats - Autodesk's AutoCAD .dxf format - Miscellaneous formats (.gfo, .irtp, .stla, .stlb). For source code to loaders for MultiGen .flt versions greater than 11, contact MultiGen, Inc at (408) 556-2600. IRIS Performer 1.0 and 1.1 include database loaders for MultiGen v11 "flt", SGI "bin", and SGI "obj" formats.
Subject: -17- Is there an IRIS Inventor file reader for IRIS Performer? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Yes. IRIS Performer 2.x ships with a fully-functional Open Inventor 2.0 file loader. IRIS Performer 1.2 ships with a minimal .iv reader that will read a subset of the IRIS Inventor 1.0 format. A port of the more robust 2.x reader for Open Inventor files is also available for Performer 1.2, in the Performer FTP Archives: ftp://sgigate.sgi.com/pub/Performer/src/ No Inventor file reader exists for Performer 1.0 or 1.1.
Subject: -18- What are the .tlf files used by the Performer Town and Village? Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST They are encrypted .flt files of the Town and Village database. Only the "demo" version of perfly shipped with RealityEngine systems in demos.sw.visualization can read these files. Unencrypted versions of the Town and Village databases are included in the performer_friends.sw.town subsystem of Performer 1.2 and 2.0.
Subject: -19- What are the minimum requirements for using IRIS Performer? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST IRIS Performer 2.0 is the all platform release and requires IRIX 5.3 or later IRIX releases. Binary compatible upgrade patches are available and recommended. IRIS Performer 2.1 requires IRIX 6.2 or a later IRIX release. IRIS Performer 2.1 is intended for running on or developing for the InfiniteReality graphics platform. IRIS Performer 2.0.4 (eoe) requires IRIX 6.2 or a later IRIX release and shipped in IRIX 6.4 and IRIS Performer patch 1696 IRIS Performer 2.0.3 (eoe) requires IRIX 6.2 or a later IRIX release and is shipped in IRIX 6.3. IRIS Performer 2.0.2 (eoe) requires IRIX 6.2 and later and is shipped in IRIX 6.2 and was shipped in IRIS Performer patch 1392 and has now been obsoleted by IRIS Performer 2.0.4 in patch 1696. IRIS Performer 2.0.1 (eoe) requires IRIX 6.2 or a later IRIX release was shipped in IRIX 6.2. Patch 1347 (eoe 2.0.2) requires IRIX 6.2 or later IRIX releases and is obsoleted by patch 1396. Patch 1396 (eoe pf2.0.4) requires IRIX 6.2 or later IRIX releases Patch 1392 (dev pf2.0.2) requires IRIX 6.2 or later IRIX releases Patch 1414 (eoe+dev pf2.0.2 for IRIX 5.3) is only for IRIX 5.3. IRIS Performer 1.2/IRIX5 requires IRIX 5.2 or later IRIX release. IRIS Performer 1.2/IRIX4 requires IRIX 4.0.5. Because IRIX 4.0.5F added several new Graphics Library (GL) calls to support RealityEngine features, any application that uses GL routines or tokens found only in 4.0.5F and later, will not run properly under 4.0.5C and earlier releases.
Subject: -20- Binary Compatibility on different machines Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Applications compiled with IRIS Performer 2.0 using IRIX 5.3 will run unmodified across all SGI platforms. For best performance, use IRIS GL with RealityEngine and other pre-Impact systems and use OpenGL for Impact and post-Impact graphics hardware. OpenGL-oriented systems provide the IGLOO (Iris GL on OpenGL) portability layer to execute IRIS GL applications, but it is not the maximum performance route. Performance oriented developers are advised to generate both IRIS GL and OpenGL executables, by linking with the API-compatible IRIS Performer 2.0 IRIS GL and OpenGL libraries. In this way, you can assure optimum performance across present and future graphics systems. For OpenGL development on RealityEngine with IRIX 5.3, patch 154 (or a superseding patch) is recommended for performance and features. IRIS Performer 1.2/IRIX5 contains a single version of libpr for all machines. Applications built with Performer 1.2 for Irix 5.2 are fully compatible across machines and can run on any graphics type without relinking. In IRIS Performer 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2/IRIX4, libpr is platform- specific with one of two versions installed depending on whether the machines is a RealityEngine or not. Binaries linked on non-RealityEngine machines will run on a RealityEngine, but not all features will be available.
Subject: -21- Binary Compatibility on different releases Date: 17 Oct 97 00:00:01 EST o Compatibility issues with previous Performer releases: IRIS Performer release have a number of 3 fields: Major.Minor.Maint Maintenance releases are binary compatible with all versions of the same Major.Minor base release. For example, 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.0.3 and 2.0.4 are all binary compatible with each other and are all binarcy compatible with their base release, 2.0. Maintenance releases contain bug fixes and the highest maintenance number will be the most recent release. Different Major.Minor releases are not binary compatible; ie: IRIS Performer 2.0 is not binary compatible with IRIS Performer 2.1. For this reason, IRIS Performer releases include compatibility libraries from previous releases (properly versioned and suffixed for the IRIX environment) so that old IRIS Performer applications will continue to run without re-linking. Performer compatibility issues with IRIX 5.3: Applications created with IRIS Performer 2.0 using IRIX 5.3 also run under IRIX 6.1 and later IRIX releases in 32-bit mode. The 32-bit applications created using IRIX 5.3 will not make use of 64-bit address space and other MIPS III/IV features provided by the IRIS Performer N32 and N64 development environment under IRIX 6.2 and later operating system releases. Note that applications built on an IRIX 6.1 or 6.2 systems are not guaranteed to run properly on 5.3 systems, due to changes in structures used by system libraries. (This is true even for applications that do not use IRIS Performer-- applications built on later versions of IRIX may not run on earlier ones). Therefore to produce an O32 executable that will run on all SGI systems 5.3 and later, the compiling must be done on an IRIX 5.3 system. Performer compatibility issues with IRIX 6.1: Applications created with IRIS Performer 2.0 under IRIX 6.1 can be compiled and linked for 32-bit IRIX 5.3-style execution (known as Old 32-bit mode, or O32) only. IRIS Performer programs built for the two new executable types (N32 and N64) are not operable on pre-6.2 systems -- specifically, they will not run on IRIX 5.3 or 6.1 systems. O32 IRIS Performer programs will run on IRIX 6.1. However, the OpenGL development environment of IRIX 6.1 is not as full featured as the 32-bit OpenGL of IRIX 5.3 or IRIX 6.2. This can cause both low-performance and lack-of-feature problems for developers creating OpenGL applications. For this reason, developers are advised to build only IRIS GL applications on IRIX 6.1 systems or to upgrade to IRIX 6.2 for access to its enhanced 32-bit and 64-bit OpenGL development environment. Performer compatibility issues with IRIX 6.2: IRIS Performer 2.0 and 2.1 are compatible with IRIX 6.2 and later IRIX relases. Applications can be developed for all three execution modes: O32, N32, and N64. The IRIX 6.2 32-bit and 64-bit OpenGL implementations have the RealityEngine feature extensions and performance enhancements found in IRIX 5.3. For this reason, developers are urged to use IRIX 6.2 or later rather than IRIX 6.1 for OpenGL development. As mentioned above, IRIS Performer applications built in either N32 or N64 mode will not run on IRIX 5.3 or 6.1 systems, and, in general, applications should not be run on earlier versions of IRIX than the machine on which they are compiled. Applications using Performer 1.2/IRIX5 are binary compatible with machines running Irix 5.2, 5.3, 6.0, and later IRIX releases without relinking. IRIS Performer 1.0 requires IRIX 4.0.5 or later. Because IRIX 4.0.5F added several new GL calls to support RealityEngine features, an application that uses GL routines or tokens found only in 4.0.5F and later does not run properly under 4.0.5, 4.0.5B, or 4.0.5C. When run on these earlier IRIX releases, an IRIS Performer 1.0 application making calls to GL functions or using GL tokens that are undefined in the run-time environment cause run-time errors or undefined behavior. An IRIS Performer 1.0 binary compiled and linked under IRIX releases earlier than 4.0.5F will run under IRIX 4.0.5F and later, but some RealityEngine features are not directly accessible to the application. An application can still access RealityEngine features supported automatically or explicitly through IRIS Performer when linked with IRIS Performer shared libraries. Running a IRIS Performer application built with IRIX 4.0.5 on IRIX 5.X is not recommended. In particular, multiprocess applications cannot take advantage of all processors. Also, because IRIX 4.0.5's relaxed shared memory accounting was replaced by a despotic and stricter regime under IRIX 5.2, a Performer application built on 4.0.5 will need a much larger amount of swap space to be allocated up front unless PFTMPDIR is used to specify a memory mapped file.
Subject: -22- Guaranteeing Real Time performance Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST - Run as root so that Performer can lock your process to a particular CPU (if using pfuLockCPU) and give it a non-degrading priority. - Be sure to kill any clocks, gr_osview, or other tools that may wake up and draw themselves, so as to avoid graphics context switches. - When multiprocessing, make sure the executable is on a local file system. - There is a new real-time kernel directive for Onyx/Challenge processors for directing system interrupts away from real-time processors. In the file /var/sysgen/system/irix.sm, Search for NOINTR and below the comment explaining NOINTR, add the line NOINTR: 1 2 3 4 ..etc.. where you list the CPUs that you intend to do real-time processing on. Then reboot. This can be done on 5.2+ Onyx/Challenge systems but wasn't covered in the base IRIX5 documentation. Be sure -not- to specify CPU 0, as you will want it to be available for necessary interrupts. - With IRIS GL, real-time performance can only be guaranteed if you have one window rendering at a time, per pipe. If more than one application is rendering to the same hardware pipeline, the (hardware) graphics pipe has to switch back & forth between each GL window's context several hundred times per second. This is horribly inefficient and the graphics pipe will instruct the "other" process to block while its context is switched out. - Since having other (cpu-based) applications running can also effect real-time performance, it's sometimes desirable to minimize the number of daemons and other processes. If you have problems achieving real-time behavior, try the pfuLockCPU in libpfutil. You might also try turning off the desktop support and other daemons that are not crucial to your application, e.g.: % touch ~/.disableDesktop or % mkdir ~/.desktop-<machinename> % touch ~/.desktop-<machinename>/nodesktop and for total removal do: % chkconfig desktop off % chkconfig objectserver off % chkconfig directoryserver off % chkconfig fontserver off % chkconfig soundscheme off
Subject: -23- How do I make GL calls from within a IRIS Performer program? Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST GL calls can only be made from a process that has a GL context. In multi-process Performer applications only the draw process has GL context, so you must make your GL calls in a function called in the draw process. The pipe initialization callback, draw function callback, and node draw callbacks are all executed in the draw process. In an application that only will ever run single-process, GL calls can be made from anywhere in the program, but this is considered a dangerous practice. To set up a pipe initialization callback, see the pfInitPipe() manpage. To set up a draw function callback, see the pfChanDrawFunc() manpage. To set up a node draw callback, see the pfNodeTravFuncs() manpage.
Subject: -24- How do I overlay graphics on top of my Performer scene? Date: 06 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST Typically this is done to implement a heads-up display (HUD). In the draw function callback, the basic algorithm is: save state with pfPushState() disable textures, fog, & lighting with pfBasicState() save & clear projection matrix ortho2() save & clear modelling matrix draw() restore modelling matrix restore projection matrix restore state with pfPopState() Or, you can draw your static info in the overlay planes and only redraw it when the window receives a REDRAW event (moved, resized, etc.). Changing between drawing to the overlays and drawing to regular bitplanes takes a big hit. For things that need to be updated real-time, draw() would consist of: zfunction(ZF_ALWAYS); zwritemask(0x0); draw HUD stuff zfunction(ZF_LEQUAL); zwritemask(0xffffffff);
Subject: -25- What is the difference between phases FREE, FLOAT, and LOCK? Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST PFPHASE_FREE_RUN wakes the application and draw processes up on the next video field boundary after the draw finishes. i.e. it's Performer's version of the usual run as-fast-as-I-can or as-slow-as-I-must mode that most simple graphics programs use. PFPHASE_FLOAT wakes the application up only on frame boundaries, i.e. time = n*(1/frame_rate). However, the draw process "floats" with respect to the frame rate and wakes up on the next possible field boundary and then does a swapbuffers() when it's done, regardless of whether it finished drawing in time for the desired frame rate. Hence you see every frame that's drawn to the backbuffer, but it may not appear at exactly the time for which it was planned. If you never frame extend, it behaves like PFPHASE_FIXED. Latency is variable. PFPHASE_LOCK wakes the application and draw up only on frame boundaries and only swaps on frame boundaries. The advantage is that each new image always appears at precisely the time for which it was rendered. The disadvantage is that if the draw runs even slightly over a frame time, you skip that entire frame and are stuck with an outdated picture for a frame. Latency is fixed. For more information see the pfPhase() man page or section 7.1.2 of the PFPG.
Subject: -26- Use of PFTMPDIR to configure shared memory Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST IRIS Performer requires shared memory and uses a memory-mapped file, the location of which depends on the value of the PFTMPDIR environment variable: If PFTMPDIR is not set, Performer uses /dev/zero as the default. Running an application in this configuration: - Uses swap space - Does not require disk space until main memory is exhausted - Is faster than using a regular memory mapped file via PFTMPDIR - Causes IRIX to kill the process(es) and log an error to the console if the application runs out of space for shared memory in the swap partition. If PFTMPDIR is set, Performer creates files in the specified directory. Running an application in this configuration: - Requires disk space even before main memory is exhausted - Is slower than /dev/zero because it touches the disk - Produces appropriately sized core dump files with no limit set by IRIS Performer - Might cause a core dump from a segmentation violation inside pfMalloc if the application runs out of space for shared memory in the file system containing PFTMPDIR - PFTMPDIR should be set only to a directory on a local file system.
Subject: -27- Which rendering primitives does IRIS Performer support? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Points (PFGS_POINTS), Independent line segments (PFGS_LINES), Connected line strips (PFGS_LINESTRIPS), Flat connected line strips (PFGS_FLAT_LINESTRIPS), Independent Triangles (PFGS_TRIS), Independent quadrilaterals (PFGS_QUADS), Connected triangle strips (PFGS_TRISTRIPS), Flat Connected triangle strips (PFGS_FLAT_TRISTRIPS), Independent n-sided polygons (PFGS_POLYS). See the pfGeoSet(3pf) man page for more information.
Subject: -28- How do I do triangle meshes in Performer? Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST You must change your triangle meshes to triangle strips by hand. In Performer 2.0, pfdMeshGSet (pfuMeshGSet in 1.2) does this for you.
Subject: -29- ================= Known Problems ================= Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST
Subject: -30- Video Rate sometimes reported incorrectly Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The video rate used by IRIS Performer for frame rate control is computed at application startup on some machines and is not always exactly correct. If this is a problem, the video rate can be set with pfVideoRate.
Subject: -31- Problems with Performer Town or Village demos Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST - IRIX 5.0: It was reported that perfly would cause an Onyx RE or VTX to hang. This was fixed in 5.0.1. - IRIX 5.0.1: perfly would generate floating point exceptions due to a bug in the font manager library (libfm). This was fixed in 5.1. - IRIX 5.2/5.3 Kernel Panic: Certain IRIX patches were incompatible with Performer and would cause the Town or Village demos to panic the system if run as root. The error message was: PANIC: CPU 3: Stack Extension Page is inconsistent Double PANIC: CPU 0: Stack Extension Page is inconsistent 111 at block 0 In IRIX 5.2, the crash occurs with patches 125 and 139. In IRIX 5.3, the crash occurs with patch 158. - Jerky forward motion. This is caused by an uneven frame rate. The Performer town demo is fill limited and typically can not maintain a steady 30Hz. This can also occur if perfly is not being run as root. When run by root, Performer applications will set nondegradable priorities for their processes to improve the consistency of the run-time behavior. This same problem is also caused by the user having another GL-based application (like gr_osview) running at the same time. - Ghosting. A true FAQ is why multiple images of objects like trees, house edges, the horizon, etc. are seen as the viewer turns. This is a form of "temporal aliasing" and is an attribute of having a frame rate which is less than the video refresh rate. The problem is that a single image is scanned out onto the monitor several times before being changed. The repetition of a frame means that the image is temporally inaccurate for motion. Real moving objects do not stay in one place for a couple frame times and then move. What's actually happening is that your eye is following an object, moving with the same angular velocity, which keeps the image stationary on the retina. Between two video refreshes of the same frame, your eye has moved, but the image on the screen has not. Consequently the image of the second frame appears at a different location on the retina, and you see a "ghost" image. So a simulation running at 20Hz update on a display refreshing at 60Hz, the object will appear tripled. On large objects such as horizon silhouette, the effect manifests itself as multiple edges.
Subject: -32- Antialiasing Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When it is not multisampling, pfAntialias can significantly degrade performance. Specifically, on non-RealityEngine systems, use pfAntialias only for lines and points.
Subject: -33- Coplanar Polygons & pfDecal on certain platforms Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST pfDecal works only on machines that support the stencil or displacepolygon command. The default decaling mode for PFDECAL_BASE now uses displacepolygon instead of stencil. This can significantly improve rendering performance but can result in visual anomalies where layer polygons incorrectly "poke" through other geometry. If you wish the old behavior then specify the PFDECAL_BASE_HIGH_QUALITY token.
Subject: -34- Networked graphics (DGL & GLX) Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST libpf-based applications in IRIS Performer 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 2.0 do not support applications that use networked GL (DGL). However, applications using libpr only can use DGL. This bug/problem is a side-effect of having vertical retrace counter control, which is only available on VGX, VGXT, VTX, Reality Engine, Reality Engine 2, Elan, and Extreme graphics systems. OpenGL-based Performer 2.0 applications display properly to remote systems via the GLX X server extension.
Subject: -35- Transparency Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST pfTransparency works only on machines that support either blendfunction or multisampling. Sometimes users report that their transparency seems quantized. This is not a bug -- Performer defaults to using Multisample transparency (msalpha) when multisampling is enabled, instead of using the "standard" (blendfunction) transparency mechanism. Multisample transparency is faster but has much less resolution, and so less quality. Standard transparency using blendfunction is slower, but the quality is very good. To force Performer to use higher-quality (but slower) transparency when multisampling, 1.0/1.1: pfGStateMode (gstate, PFSTATE_TRANSPARENCY, 2); 1.2/2.0: pfGStateMode (gstate, PFSTATE_TRANSPARENCY, PFTR_HIGH_QUALITY); aka PFTR_BLEND_ALPHA In 1.0/1.1 the BLEND_ALPHA token was not exposed, but just use '2'. Be sure to revisit this code when you port to 1.2, as the token has changed. See the pfTransparency(3pf) man page for more details.
Subject: -36- Gangdraw and cursor loading Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Loading the cursor with ganged swapbuffers (external swapready wire) hangs graphics. Workaround: don't load the cursor and use a full screen window when using ganged swapbuffers.
Subject: -37- Frame control on low- and mid-range machines Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Frame control on low- and mid-range machines: Currently, the video clock (pfInitVClock, pfGetVClock, pfVClockSync) is supported only on systems with VGX, VGXT, RealityEngine, RealityEngine2, Elan, XS, Extreme, and Impact graphics hardware. On other systems, pfVClockSync returns immediately. Because libpf normally uses pfVClockSync for frame rate control, frame control is not rigorous on other platforms.
Subject: -38- Timing on pre-1992 platforms Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Several libpf functions require high-resolution timing information. On most recent machines (Indy, Indigo, Indigo2, 4D/35 and Onyx) and PowerSeries or Crimson machines with IO3 boards, IRIS Performer uses special hardware counters with sub-microsecond resolution. (The IO3 board was standard on Crimson and later 4D/300 and 4D/400 machines. You can check for it with the hinv(1M) command.) On older platforms, for example, those with IO2 boards, the time-of-day clock is used, which, by default, has a 10 ms resolution. This resolution is inadequate for many libpf functions, including animation sequences (pfSequence), graphics load computation (pfChanStress), and the display of accurate channel statistics (pfDrawChanStats). On these machines, you may want to enable fast timers using systune(1M) to set the fasthz variable. See the man page for timers for more information. Frame rate control is poor on machines that lack both a fast clock and the video clock used by pfVClockSync.
Subject: -39- 2.0 Warnings from ld when building on IRIX 6.2 Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST When building executables on IRIX 6.2 and linking directly using ld rather than implicitly via CC, an alarming number of warnings about tables that are defined in multiple .so's may be printed. These are harmless but the appropriate compiler option to disable the warning has not yet been identified. The problem does not occur when linking with CC, which is identical in function and serves as an effective workaround.
Subject: -40- 2.0 Bug OpenGL functions missing when building static executables Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST When building static OpenGL executables in IRIX 5.3 installed it may be necessary to specify the "-ignore_unresolved" option to ld since not all OpenGL extensions used in Performer are available on all platforms and OS versions. You may see warnings for the unresolved symbols of OpenGL extensions that are not present on the current system, but the executable will still successfully link.
Subject: -41- 2.0 Bug Z buffer problems when moving windows on 5.3 EXtreme Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST When moving a window on Extreme graphics under IRIX 5.3, in some clear modes the Z-buffer may not be updated properly until a full czclear() operation is performed.
Subject: -42- 2.0 Bug Use of more than 512 simultaneous textures Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST When more than 512 textures are used in either IRIS GL or OpenGL the hardware and or host-side software may become confused and in some cases, may falter completely and terminate the application. This is a graphics library limitation.
Subject: -43- 2.0 Bug IRIS GL on dual-head systems Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST IRIS GL based Performer executables encounter difficulties when executing on dual-head Indigo systems. This problem is not present in OpenGL applications.
Subject: -44- 2.0 Bug Resizing of pfPipeWindows in MP X apps Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Dynamic resizing of pfPipeWindows when multi-processed and using X windows (IRIS GLX or OpenGL/X) when an alternate framebuffer configuration window is selected (such as the fill statistics window in OpenGL/X perfly) can cause channel viewports to be confused when the alternate framebuffer configuration window is de-selected (such as disabling the fill statistics in perfly when running with X windows).
Subject: -45- 2.0 Bug Applying frustums transformed by pfOrthoXformFrust Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST pfApplyFrust() does not properly apply a frustum which has been transformed with pfOrthoXformFrust(). Instead, the canonical frustum whose eye is at the origin and is looking down the +Y axis, is applied.
Subject: -46- 2.0 Bug pfFlatten with pfCycleBuffer attribute arrays Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST pfFlatten() is broken for pfGeoSets with pfCycleBuffer attribute arrays. A core dump is likely.
Subject: -47- 2.0 Bug Sorting lights with pfChanBinSort() Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The PFSTATE_LIGHTS sorting key for the PFSORT_BY_STATE mode of pfChanBinSort() is not yet implemented.
Subject: -48- 2.0 Bug OpenGL disables back material modes Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Although Performer supports it, OpenGL does not support different material color modes for front and back materials. When Performer encounters this case, it disables the material color mode for the back material.
Subject: -49- 2.0 Bug CPU statistics in IRIX 6 Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Statistics: The PFSTATSHW_CPU pfStats statistics class for accumulation of statistics on CPU usage are not yet implemented for IRIX6 operation (64bit or 32bit).
Subject: -50- 2.0 Bug pfdLoadFile_flt FLT loader in IRIX 6 Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The FLT loader under 64bit operation may core dump.
Subject: -51- 2.0 Bug hello sample program in IRIX 6 Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The src/pguide/libpf/C/hello sample program may core dump under 64bit operation.
Subject: -52- 2.0 Bug Forked X input handing in IRIX 6.2 Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST On beta versions of 6.2 some problems were experienced with handling X input in an additional forked process. For this reason, the perfly sample application has a conditional compilation construct to use the non-forked X input handling option of the libpfutil X input handling utilities when compiled under IRIX6. You may find this to not be necessary.
Subject: -53- 2.0 Bug Intersections with pfBillboard nodes Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Intersection testing of line segments (pfNodeIsectSegs) against geometry in pfBillboard nodes is not yet implemented; only the bounding sphere of the entire pfBillboard is available.
Subject: -54- 2.0 Bug Channel fade LOD attributes & mixed gfx configs Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Channel fade LOD attributes are set in the application process. The existence of multisample, required for fade LOD, is tested at the time that the attributes are set with pfChanLODAttr. This test for multisample uses the application process window system connection (pfOpenWSConnection) or else the DISPLAY environment variable to select a screen for determining graphics configuration, instead of testing the current window of the pfChannel. In a multipipe environment where one graphics pipeline has multisample and one does not, the application process needs to have a window system connection or DISPLAY that points to the pipeline with multisample, in which case the non-multisample pfChannels will try to use fade LOD. In a multi-window environment, windows without multisample on a system with multisample will try to use fade LOD.
Subject: -55- 2.0 Bug libpfui C API incomplete Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST Libpfui has both a C API and a C++ API. The C API is actually wrappers around the C++ API and is not complete.
Subject: -56- 2.0 Bug libpfdb pfdLoadFile_dxf incomplete Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The DXF loader does not fully support the format.
Subject: -57- 2.0 Bug libpfdb pfdLoadFile_sgo incomplete Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The SGO loader does not support triangle strips
Subject: -58- 2.0 Bug IRIS GL perfly on Indy Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The background of the GUI panel is influenced by the loaded database. Additionally, fill statistics are not supported on Indy under IRIS GL and will cause flashing and error messages to stderr.
Subject: -59- 2.0 Bug pguide/libpf/C/pipewin sample program Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The overlay text is only drawn in IRIS GL and does not get properly redrawn when the window size is changed.
Subject: -60- 2.0 Bug pguide/libpf/C/lpstate sample program Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The lpstate.c example for demonstrating pfLPointStates uses sophisticated texturing capabilities that may not yet work on the IMPACT, Extreme, or Indy graphics platforms.
Subject: -61- 2.0 Bug pfInitClock() and Video Rate on 250MHz IMPACT Date: 12 Dec 95 00:00:01 EST The clock period determined by pfInitClock() on 250MHz IMPACT systems is apparently inconsistent with the true clock period. It seems that the actual clock period is that of a 200MHz system. Consequently, pfGetTime() will return a time that is .8 (200/250) that of the true time. Among other things, this invalidates the calculations done by Performer to determine the current video rate. As a workaround, you can specify an alternate clock period with the PFCLOCKPERIOD environment variable. If set, PFCLOCKPERIOD specifies the clock period, in picoseconds, to be used by pfInitClock(). For proper behavior on 250MHz IMPACT systems, use 40000 for the period.
Subject: -62- 1.2 Bug Billboard normals and intersections Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST During rendering, pfBillboard normals are not affected by the transformation applied to make the geometry follow the eye. Intersection testing of line segments (pfSegsIsectNode) against the pfGeoSet's geometry and bounding box are not yet implemented; only the bounding sphere of the entire pfBillboard is available.
Subject: -63- 1.2 Bug Incompatibility with IRIX 6.1 XFS Date: 20 Nov 95 00:00:01 EST Performer 1.2 contains a bug that prevents the use of an IRIX 6.1 XFS filesystem (the replacement for the older EFS) for Performer shared memory and semaphores. There are a number of workarounds: 1) Use an EFS root filesystem 2) set PFTMPDIR to an EFS file system 3) reorder the device types in the kernel configuration files and build a new kernel. This problem is fixed in Performer 2.0.
Subject: -64- 1.2 Bug Billboards with multiple pfGeoSets Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Using pfBillboards with more than one pfGeoSet sometimes causes a segmentation violation during the first cull traversal. Workaround: use only a single pfGeoSet per pfBillboard at some cost in performance.
Subject: -65- 1.2 Bug Flattening transformation hierarchies Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST pfFlatten does not work properly on pfGeodes that share pfGeoSets with other pfGeodes.
Subject: -66- 1.2 libpf Bug Hang on Exit, 5.2 VGX Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST On VGXT running 5.2, calling pfExit when the phase is PFPHASE_LOCK or PFPHASE_FLOAT can leave an inactive window and DRAW process. Workaround: switch to PFPHASE_FLOAT or PFPHASE_FREE before exiting or kill -9 <pid> afterwards.
Subject: -67- 1.2 libpf Cull with overlapped draw latency Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When running PFPHASE_LIMIT or PFPHASE_FREE, the draw can start late resulting in higher latency.
Subject: -68- 1.2 libpf Cull with overlapped draw hang Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When running PFPHASE_LIMIT or PFPHASE_FREE, with processes locked and non-degrading priorities, it is possible to lock out the X server and hang the system.
Subject: -69- 1.2 libpf Transparency Sorting Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When the PFCULL_SORT mode of pfChanTravMode is set, transparent objects are drawn after all opaque geometry. However, transparent objects are not sorted back to front among themselves, so visual anomalies can result when using blended transparency. Workaround: use multisample transparency (PFTR_MS_ALPHA), if available.
Subject: -70- 1.2 libpf Multiple EarthSky fog Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When using multiple pipes which share pfEarthSky fog set by pfESkyFog, the fog may appear to change densities and flash. Workaround: to guarantee that pfClearChan is not called simultaneously by more than one pipe. This may be accomplished with a hardware spin lock (see usnewlock)
Subject: -71- 1.2 libpf Bug Limit Phase Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The PFPHASE_LIMIT mode of pfPhase only works when the draw stage is configured as a separate process. For example, the PFMP_APP_CULLDRAW mode to pfMultiprocess specifies that the cull and draw stages are combined into a single process and so will not be affected by a LIMIT phase.
Subject: -72- 1.2 libpr Highlighting when using wireframe Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Using highlighting when in wireframe mode can cause random, flickering, or otherwise misbehaved polygons.
Subject: -73- 1.2 libpf APPCULLDRAW does not honor LIMIT/FLOAT/LOCK phases Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When in PFMP_APPCULLDRAW mode, both FREE_RUN and LIMIT act the same; as do FLOAT and LOCK.
Subject: -74- 1.2 libpf Phase toggling overlapped cull and draw Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When running in the PFMP_CULLoDRAW multiprocessing mode, changing the phase from PFPHASE_LOCK or PFPHASE_FLOAT to PFPHASE_FREE_RUN or PFPHASE_LIMIT can cause the application to deadlock. In perfly, rapidly toggling the phase when running with the PFMP_CULLoDRAW multiprocessing model ("perfly -m 65540" or "perfly -m 65542") can cause the application to hang. Workaround: toggle only once every few frames or not at all.
Subject: -75- 1.2 libpf pfDataPool warning on exit Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST A warning similar to the following sometimes occurs when a sample program exits: "Performer Warning (2): pfReleaseDPool() Could not unlink arena shared memory /usr/tmp/pfUtilDataPool11638.pfdpool." This warning is harmless and can be ignored.
Subject: -76- 1.2 libpf Multi-channel stats warning messages Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When a multi-channel libpf application enables libpr pfStats modes (such as graphics statistics -- PFSTATS_GFX) in multiple channels at the same time, warning messages are printed every frame. The calculated statistics will be correct. To stop the stream of warning messages, raise the pfNotifyLevel in the program or set the enviornment variable PFNFYLEVEL to a value smaller than 2.
Subject: -77- 1.2 libpf Video warnings on Indy when multiprocessed Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When an application on an Indy is forced to run the APP and DRAW in separate processes, e.g. pfMultiprocess(PFMP_APP_CULLDRAW), pfGetVideoRate warnings are printed when process timing stats are on. To stop the stream of warning messages, raise the pfNotifyLevel in the program or set the enviornment variable PFNFYLEVEL to a value smaller than 2.
Subject: -78- 1.2 stats Frame statistics for lightpoints Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST pfFrameStats for visible uni-directional and bi-directional pfLightPoint nodes and points are incorrect. These statistics are part of the pfFrameStats database statistics (PFFSTATS_DB) and these specific counts are incorrect. However, the counts for total number of visible pfLightPoint nodes and points are correct, and so are the counts for Omni-directional pfLightPoint nodes and points. However, these numbers are only counted when PFFSTATS_CULL are enabled.
Subject: -79- 1.2 stats Pixel fill statistics under 4.0.5 on RealityEngine Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Under 4.0.5, fill statistics do not work when multisampling. Workaround: turn off multisampling.
Subject: -80- 1.2 libpr Directional pfLightPoints Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Specifying a pfLightPoint node as PFLP_UNIDIRECTIONAL or PFLP_BIDIRECTIONAL can cause a core dump in pfLightPoint::cull. Workaround: set the color of the first light point with pfLPointColor(lp, 0, color) before calling pfLPointShape.
Subject: -81- 1.2 libpfutil pfuCollide is jerky Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The collision model jerks and bounces when you keep hitting something.
Subject: -82- 1.2 libpfutil pfuSaveImage broken Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The image file generated by pfuSaveImage is bogus.
Subject: -83- 1.2 libpfsgi pfLoadDxf loader is incomplete Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The DXF loader does not fully support the format.
Subject: -84- 1.2 libpfsgi pfLoadIv loader is incomplete Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The IRIS Inventor loader reads a subset of the IRIS Inventor 1.0 format.
Subject: -85- 1.2 GLX Overlay text with GLX on 4.0.5 Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST In the sample programs (e.g. perfly) on some platforms, sometimes drawing messages (pfuDrawMessageCI) to the overlay planes in GLX mode doesn't work under 4.0.5. Workaround: use only in GL mode (e.g. do not use "perfly -x") or upgrade to IRIX 5.2.
Subject: -86- 1.2 GLX Toggling antialiasing with GLX on 4.0.5 RealityEngine Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Toggling antialiasing in the sample programs running in GLX mode on a 4.0.5 RealityEngine apparently confuses the graphics pipe and causes wild texturing. Workaround: use only in GL mode (e.g. do not use "perfly -x") or upgrade to IRIX 5.2.
Subject: -87- 1.2 GLX Toggling antialiasing with GLX on any RealityEngine Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When antialiasing is toggled with the GUI in GLX mode, the GL window changes. As each texture textures first comes into view, it is downloaded to the graphics hardware. Occasional pauses will be seen until all textures are reloaded in the graphics hardware. This can be avoided by redownloading all textures (pfuDownloadTexList).
Subject: -88- 1.2 GLX on 4.0.5 Indigo, sample programs hang on startup. Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Some sample programs will hang on startup if in GLX mode. Workaround: start up only in GL mode (e.g. do not use "perfly -x") or upgrade to IRIX 5.2.
Subject: -89- 1.2 samples smallfly drive models broken Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Toggling the drive-model button in smallfly can cause unexpected results.
Subject: -90- 1.2 samples pickfly drops core under abuse Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When aggressively navigating the hierarchy, the number of pfSCSes in the scene graph can exceed the maximum libpf traversal depth of 64.
Subject: -91- 1.2 samples detail example broken on 4.0.5 Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The example program sample/pguide/libpf/progs/detail.c doesn't run properly under 4.0.5. Workaround: upgrade to 5.2.
Subject: -92- 1.2 friends Belvis makefile requires pmake Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The makefile for the belvis demo in the Computer Arts and Development section requires the pmake utility. Workaround: install dev.sw.make.
Subject: -93- 1.2 friends Toon has bad models and textures Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Some of the textures are mixed up in toon town.
Subject: -94- 1.2 docs pfuGetGLXWin wrong on reference page Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The prototype in the man page should read: "extern void pfuGetGLXWin(pfPipe *_pipe, pfuGLXWindow *_glxWin);" pfuGetGLXWin copies the active GLX windows (normal and overlay) for the specified pipe into the provided pfuGLXWindow structure. The active windows change when a different GLX visual is requested.
Subject: -95- 1.2 docs pfuLockDownApp gives the incorrect location Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST pfuLockDownApp gives the incorrect location for the procsetup.c example: The correct location for this example is: /usr/src/Performer/src/pguide/libpfutil/progs/procsetup.c Additionally, the reference page should mention the example /usr/src/Performer/src/pguide/libpf/progs/bench.c
Subject: -96- 1.1 Bug with FP underflow Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST The cull process could encounter an FP underflow that could periodically affect cull performance.
Subject: -97- 1.1 Bug with Multipipe Onyx Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST There is a bug in the 1.1 multipipe code. The symptom is a core dump and an error like: Performer Fatal (4):pfFree() pointer 0x9c9350 not from pfMalloc The workaround is to do the following after you've created a channel with pfNewChan: ((long**)chan)[3] = NULL; This workaround MUST NOT BE USED in Performer 1.2 applications.
Subject: -98- 1.1 Bug Installing on Indy or Indigo2 XL Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST The problems are related to the way that Performer recognizes the graphics hardware in the machine. Since the Indy was introduced after Performer 1.1 released, Performer is unable to match the graphics type (NEWPORT) with the hardware types it knows. This effects both the installation and run-time applications. /usr/lib/libpr.a, /usr/lib/libpr-g.a, /usr/src/Performer/demo/perfly, and /usr/src/Performer/src/perfly/Makefile are machine-tagged in inst as platform-specific and will not be installed by default. WORKAROUND: You must remove IRIS Performer 1.1 from your machine and re-install, explicitly defining the graphics hardware type. LIGHT (Entry) graphics is the closest approximation to NEWPORT. % su # versions remove performer_eoe # versions remove performer_dev # inst -f <pathname> -m GFXBOARD=LIGHT
Subject: -99- 1.1 Bug Unable to determine Indy graphics type Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Performer 1.1 applications on Indy display the message: "unable to determine graphics type -1. Default: VENICE" WORKAROUND: The above message means that Performer was unable to match NEWPORT graphics to a known graphics type, and has defaulted to VENICE (RealityEngine). This could cause some anomalous behavior in your application. There is no specific workaround at this time.
Subject: -100- 1.1 Bug perfly cannot find libpf.so on Indy running 5.1 Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST /usr/src/Performer/demo/perfly fails with the error message: "perfly: rld: Fatal Error: cannot find soname 'libpf.so'" WORKAROUND: You must recompile perfly from the source code provided in /usr/src/Performer/src/perfly.
Subject: -101- 1.1 Bug perfly FP error messages in 5.0.1 Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST perfly prints the following error message(s) several times each frame: "Performer Info:FP division by zero" "Performer Info:FP infinity minus infinity" WORKAROUND: This is caused by a bug in IRIS GL and is not a fatal error. Run perfly with the "-n 2" option to disable these (and any other) informational messages.
Subject: -102- 1.1 Bug Installation on IRIX 5.2 - missing prerequisites Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST When trying to install IRIS Performer 1.1 on a machine running IRIX 5.2, you will get an error regarding a missing prerequisite, "dev.sw.libC". This subsystem contained the C++ runtime library. In 5.2 it has been renamed to "c++_eoe.sw.lib". WORKAROUND: 'set rulesoverride on' from within inst.
Subject: -103- 1.0/1.1 Bug intersections with pfSwitch'es Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST Intersections with pfSwitch'es whose value is PFSWITCH_OFF could cause a core dump.
Subject: -104- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfTexture() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST On RealityEngine systems, EXTERNAL format was ignored.
Subject: -105- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfAntiAlias() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST On RealityEngine systems, pfAntialias(PFAA_OFF) did not turn off multisampling.
Subject: -106- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfFlatten() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfFlatten did not dirty bounding spheres of flattened nodes so they had improper bounds and would not cull correctly.
Subject: -107- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfSequences Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfSequences: PFSEQ_RESUME ignored children's display times and drew subsequent children for 1 frame only.
Subject: -108- 1.0/1.1 Bug with pfClosestPtOnPlane() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfClosestPtOnPlane returned wrong result. Also, the man page had the wrong prototype.
Subject: -109- 1.0/1.1 Bug on ELAN/XS with wireframe PFGS_QUADS Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST On EXPRESS Graphics platforms (XS, XS24, ELAN, etc), wireframe quads have a stray line from one vertex to "infinity" when displayed in wireframe mode.
Subject: -110- 1.0/1.2-IRIX4 Bug Z buffer configuration on 4.0.5 RealityEngine Date: 8 Apr 94 00:00:01 EST Z buffer config on 4.0.5 RealityEngine: On some versions of IRIX 4.0.5, mssize(4,24,1) (the default by pfAntiAlias) generates an unusable Z configuration. For these machines, call mssize(4,32,1) followed by gconfig() in your pipe initialization routine and do not attempt to toggle antialiasing.
Subject: -111- 1.0 Bug pfInit(): mmap failed for /dev/zero Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST This means that you tried to run a Performer 1.0 application (such as a 4.x version of perfly) on a machine running IRIX 5.x. Virtual memory management is different in IRIX 5.x. In order for your program to work properly you must: % setenv PFTMPDIR /usr/tmp
Subject: -112- 1.0 Doc Bug in pfMakePolarSeg() man page Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST The man page for pfMakePolarSeg contradicts itself with respect to the meaning of azimuth and elevation. The correct paragraph should be: pfMakePolarSeg sets dst to the segment which starts at pos and has length length and points in the direction specified by azi and elev. azi specifies the azimuth (or heading), which is the angle which the projection of the segment in the X-Y plane makes with the +Y axis. elev specifies the elevation (or pitch), the angle with respect to the X-Y plane. The positive Y axis is azi=0 and elev=0. Azimuth follows the right hand rule about the +Z azis, e.g. - +90 degrees is the -X axis. Similarly, elevation follows the right hand rule about the X axis, e.g. - +90 degrees is the +Z axis. Note that in IRIS Performer 1.0, an azi and elev of 0.0 is equivalent to the +X axis while in 1.1, this has been changed to the +Y axis.
Subject: -113- 1.0 Doc Bug in pfDispList() man page Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST The pfDispList man page says the size argument is in bytes; it should say words.
Subject: -114- 1.0 Doc Bug in PFPG (simple.c) Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST The program simple.c in the IRIS Performer Programming Guide (PFPG) does not bind a light and draws a black image on Elan systems. The corrected version, which creates and binds a light in the pipe initialization callback, is in /usr/src/Performer/src/pguide
Subject: -115- 1.0 Bug in pfGetTime() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST In 1.0, pfGetTime() would occasionally return bad values (off by 4000+ seconds) on Indigo2 and machines without a fast counter, e.g. PowerSeries/IO2. There was no workaround.
Subject: -116- 1.0 Bug in pfNodeBBox() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfNodeBBox did not set the bounding box of a node. A symptom was that the bounding boxes of the node would not change when modifying a parent pfDCS. The workaround was to OR the value 0x0010 into the mode, e.g.- pfNodeBBox(node, &bbox, PFN_BMODE_STATIC | 0x0010);
Subject: -117- 1.0 Bug in pfInitGfx() with Z-buffer on RealityEngine Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfInitGfx on RealityEngines would call lsetdepth(0x0, 0x0), essentially disabling zbuffering. The workaround was to call lsetdepth explicitly after pfInitGfx, in the pipe initialization callback.
Subject: -118- 1.0 Bug in libpfflt combineLODs() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST combineLODs() in the MultiGen .flt converter (in file hier.c) did not set the LOD center of combined LODs. This would result in strange LOD behavior for LODs which were not modelled about the origin. (The current OpenFlight loader, revision R14_2, correctly uses the center when combining LODs and can combine any number of sibling LOD's for improved efficiency.)
Subject: -119- 1.0 Bug with two-sided material and pfMtlColorMode() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST Applying a back-sided material which had a color mode (pfMtlColorMode), would set the GL lmcolor mode. Since IrisGL does not support lmcolor for back-sided materials, this could have caused front-sided materials to use an improper lmcolor mode.
Subject: -120- 1.0 Bug in pfFilePath() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfFilePath would exit with a FATAL error if it was called twice.
Subject: -121- 1.0 Bug in pfGetCurGState() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfGetCurGState returned a pfGeoState which was the top of the state stack rather than the most recently applied pfGeoState.
Subject: -122- 1.0 Bug in pfGetCurState() Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfGetCurState returned a pfGeoState which was the top of the state stack rather than the current pfState.
Subject: -123- 1.0 Bug with cloned scenes Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfClone()'ed scenes were not properly cleaned and did not properly propagate updates. In particular, cloned pfSequences did not work.
Subject: -124- 1.0 Bug intersections in collide.c Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST collide.c was shipped with a hardwired intersection mode which turned off intersection caching, substantially reducing intersection performance.
Subject: -125- 1.0 Bug with flattened pfLightPoints Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST pfFlatten()'ed pfLightPoints were broken for multiprocessing modes when the application and cull processes were separate.
Subject: -126- 1.0 Bug intersections with pfSequences Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST Intersections with pfSequences could sometimes turn them off (PFSEQ_STOP).
Subject: -127- 1.0 Bug intersections with non-indexed quads Date: 26 Oct 93 00:00:01 EST Intersection caching for non-indexed quads was broken and could case a core dump when intersection with pfGeoSets of this type. ------------------------------ End of sgi/faq/performer Digest ****************************** -- The SGI FAQ group <sgi-faq@viz.tamu.edu> http://www-viz.tamu.edu/~sgi-faq/ Finger us for info on the SGI FAQs, or look in ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/.

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