inventor(1)

1Inventor(1)                 General Commands Manual                Inventor(1)
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NAME

6       Inventor - a toolkit for writing 3D programs
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DESCRIPTION

9       The Open Inventor 3D Toolkit is an object-oriented toolkit that simpli‐
10       fies and abstracts the task of writing graphics programming into a  set
11       of  easy  to use objects.  These objects range from low-level data-cen‐
12       tered objects such as Sphere, Camera, Material, Light,  and  Group,  to
13       high-level  application-level  objects such as Walk Viewer and Material
14       Editor.  The foundation concept in Inventor  is  the  "scene  database"
15       which  defines  the  objects  to be used in an application.  When using
16       Inventor, a programmer creates, edits, and composes these objects  into
17       hierarchical 3D scene graphs (i.e. database).  A variety of fundamental
18       application tasks such as rendering, picking, event handling, and  file
19       reading/writing  are built-in operations of all objects in the database
20       and thus are simple to invoke.
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22       Since Inventor is object-oriented (written in C++), it encourages  pro‐
23       grammers  to  extend the system by writing new objects.  Inventor users
24       have created a variety of new objects that  are  not  included  in  the
25       product, such as: Bezier surfaces, CSG objects, animation objects, spe‐
26       cial viewers, and many more.
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28       Note that the  rendering  mechanism  inside  Inventor  objects  employs
29       OpenGL.   Thus,  during  rendering  each object automatically makes the
30       proper, efficient calls to  OpenGL.   Furthermore,  Inventor  rendering
31       supports  a caching scheme which automatically generates very fast ren‐
32       derings of the database without traversal overheads.
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34       Inventor picking is extremely efficient and does not utilize rendering.
35       Furthermore,  picking  returns  a  variety of 3D information and detail
36       about what objects were picked.  A sorted list of  picked  objects  and
37       corresponding information is returned to the programmer.  Picking is so
38       fast that programs can perform 3D  locate  highlighting  as  the  mouse
39       moves across a 3D window.
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INTERACTION, EVENTS, AND DEVICES

42       Inventor  defines a event model for writing 3D interaction.  This model
43       is window system independent.  It is quite easy to  use  and  makes  3D
44       direct  manipulation programming possible.  Inventor includes a variety
45       of interactive 3D objects and tools for  writing  interactive  objects,
46       such  as:  Manipulators,  Draggers, and Projectors.  The flexible event
47       model encourages programmers  to  extend  the  system  to  support  new
48       devices and event types.
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FILE FORMAT

51       The  Inventor 3D File Format is SGI's standard for 3D data.  The format
52       supports both an ASCII and private binary format.  The binary format is
53       network-neutral and thus can be exported across machine boundaries.
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BENEFITS

56       Programming  3D  graphics  applications with Inventor results in large-
57       scale productivity increases.  This also increases with  time  as  more
58       tools utilize the Inventor paradigm, user interfaces, and standard file
59       format.
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DOCUMENTATION

62       A list of online documentation is available in the General FAQ  section
63       of the web site provided at the end of this man page.
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SOURCE CODE

66       The  Inventor  Toolkit  includes  source  code to NUMEROUS programs and
67       examples.
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