NAME¶
Inventor - a toolkit for writing 3D programs
DESCRIPTION¶
The
Open Inventor 3D Toolkit is an object-oriented toolkit that
simplifies and abstracts the task of writing graphics programming into a set
of easy to use objects. These objects range from low-level data-centered
objects such as Sphere, Camera, Material, Light, and Group, to high-level
application-level objects such as Walk Viewer and Material Editor. The
foundation concept in Inventor is the "scene database" which defines
the objects to be used in an application. When using Inventor, a programmer
creates, edits, and composes these objects into hierarchical 3D scene graphs
(i.e. database). A variety of fundamental application tasks such as rendering,
picking, event handling, and file reading/writing are built-in operations of
all objects in the database and thus are simple to invoke.
Since Inventor is object-oriented (written in C++), it encourages programmers to
extend the system by writing new objects. Inventor users have created a
variety of new objects that are not included in the product, such as: Bezier
surfaces, CSG objects, animation objects, special viewers, and many more.
Note that the rendering mechanism inside Inventor objects employs OpenGL. Thus,
during rendering each object automatically makes the proper, efficient calls
to OpenGL. Furthermore, Inventor rendering supports a caching scheme which
automatically generates very fast renderings of the database without traversal
overheads.
Inventor picking is extremely efficient and does not utilize rendering.
Furthermore, picking returns a variety of 3D information and detail about what
objects were picked. A sorted list of picked objects and corresponding
information is returned to the programmer. Picking is so fast that programs
can perform 3D locate highlighting as the mouse moves across a 3D window.
INTERACTION, EVENTS, AND DEVICES¶
Inventor defines a event model for writing 3D interaction. This model is window
system independent. It is quite easy to use and makes 3D direct manipulation
programming possible. Inventor includes a variety of interactive 3D objects
and tools for writing interactive objects, such as: Manipulators, Draggers,
and Projectors. The flexible event model encourages programmers to extend the
system to support new devices and event types.
The Inventor 3D File Format is SGI's standard for 3D data. The format supports
both an ASCII and private binary format. The binary format is network-neutral
and thus can be exported across machine boundaries.
BENEFITS¶
Programming 3D graphics applications with Inventor results in large-scale
productivity increases. This also increases with time as more tools utilize
the Inventor paradigm, user interfaces, and standard file format.
DOCUMENTATION¶
A list of online documentation is available in the General FAQ section of the
web site provided at the end of this man page.
SOURCE CODE¶
The Inventor Toolkit includes source code to NUMEROUS programs and examples.
SEE ALSO¶
drop, gview, SceneViewer, ivcat, ivview, maze, noodle, qmorf, revo, showcase,
textomatic
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/inventor/