end-to-end issues

[Seth Teller <seth@graphics.lcs.mit.edu>]

will, 

sean and i went over file names and structure on the board
yesterday.  the rough summary is that the end-to-end script
should produce a single vrml file for all campus, say campus.wrl.
that file should include files that define main campus, west, 
east, and northeast campus etc.

each of these includes a file for all relevant buildings
in that area, transformed (scale, rot, trans) from building
to common campus coords, along with (the portion of) the 
relevant (textured) ground plane/topo map for the area.  

also:  the transforms above (rotation, xy translation,
z elevation) will not be multiplied in to the base geometry,
as they are now, but instead explicitly wrapped around the 
base geometry.

each building file includes an LOD node with a distant,
medium, and near geometry spec.  

the distant spec is just a vertical extrusion (ground
to roof, no constituent floors) with a fixed (average) 
color for the building.

the medium spec is the exterior geometry only (walls,
doors, windows) perhaps with texture.

the near spec is the exterior and interior geometry
for all of the building's constituent floors.  again,
this should be organized by file includes and xforms.
(i.e., each floor is instanced with no rotation, no
xy translation, and the appropriate z translation with
respect to the building base).

[eventually there may be 4th and 5th LODs for close,
interior viewing, organized (say) by interior space.]

sean and i discussed the fact that UG does not have
the concept of LODs within it.  so the way it's done
typically is to have a naming convention in which a
single name (say, bldg1) is used as a base, with
infixes that describe the LOD:  say (example here
with wrl, after conversion:)  bldg1.far.wrl,
bldg1.medium.wrl, bldg1.near.wrl .

all of the above will require some coordination between
you two.  however i'd like you to take charge of the
end-to-end issue.  in particular, can you modify run.pl
to (after suitable work in a scratch/temp area) post a
clean top-level VRML file that exhibits something like 
the above structure and contents.

i've created the directory /citypub/www/city/bmg for
the BMG vrml output.  this dir should be r/w for you;
its contents are browseable (for example) as

  http://city.lcs.mit.edu/bmg/index.html

or just

  http://city.lcs.mit.edu/bmg/

can you take a shot at this by the end of next week?

seth.