By pure chance, I stumbled over a true gem for all programming related to computer graphics: GLT ZPR, a mouse manipulation module for C or C++ GLUT/OpenGL programs (verbatim quote).
The module is very easy to use: Simply #include
"zpr.h" and call zprInit();
after you called glutCreateWindow and have
made your local initializations (i.e. special setup for the
window etc.). Now you are able to use the left, right, and
middle mouse buttons to rotate, pan, and zoom—just make
sure that your GL_MODELVIEW matrix is not reset.
You can download the program from Nigel Stewart's homepage (I am not linking directly to the sources because I do not want to be impolite). By the way: It is also possible to specify selection and pick functions, but I have not tried this functionality yet.
I finally released some old code I wrote for a University course. You can find it in the University section of my homepage. The programs are not really special and well-written (as is mostly the case when assignments with short deadlines are concerned), but I polished them a bit, sprinkled some comments over them, and added a big portion of love.
Something like that, anyway.
Since it is not explicitly mentioned anywhere, you need the OpenGL and GLUT libraries in order to compile these programs. It might be necessary to change the library paths in the Makefile if you are not using FreeBSD, which is, judging from the server's log files, unfortunately most probable.
Speaking of operating systems, a fun fact from the log files: Most of my visitors use Linux or Sun Solaris. Either that or somebody really has some fun faking the user agents.
I released a program that should have been added to this site quite some time ago: comphom. It is a simple demo application that computes homology groups from simplicial triangulations.
People who have not yet heard anything about topology might not enjoy this as much as I do. Anyway, if you happen to stumble over any triangulation (such as those given by F. Lutz on his Manifold Page), comphom will compute the homology groups and write them to a file.
The program is available in the programming section and the university section of my homepage. Whichever suits you.
Let me outline how to use the program (the program package contains a README which is slightly more precise):
make. The Makefile
should work for any POSIX-compatible operating system.
perl lex_convert.pl
--input <file>
comphom --input <file>.ct [--output
<file>.out]
It is also possible to compute homology groups for arbitrary triangulations. Just see the README for more information.
As always, I am grateful for any feedback about this particular project. Contact details are available elsewhere on this site (you can also find contact details in the source code).
A reader of my blog discussed with the article about the BPF with me. He wanted to use the BPF for his own project and had read the HowTo but several problems could not be solved.
During this e-mail discussion I found several flaws in the
article and in the "IMR" demo program (concerning the
use of the BPF_WORDALIGN macro). Hence, I updated
the original
article and IMR.
I hope these new versions will become even more useful as their predecessors.
It started as a simple idea: Use a barcode scanner to sort a collection of books. Of course, the idea grew and became much more versatile and interesting.
And now I finally managed to upload all information about a
project that has been on my agenda for several weeks. The
program is called Hyppolyta; it is a simple Perl
script. If you are armed with a barcode scanner and lots of
books (or other items of value that have a barcode), this
project could be very interesting for you.
You are able to download the program package on my programming
subsection. There is also a simple documentation
available which should be read before using
Hyppolyta.
Essentially, the program is finished, but to facilitate things, several helper/wrapper applications might be added "real soon now". It is therefore advisable to come back for updates.
You are, as always, encouraged to change the source code if you think some part should be rewritten. It would be nice, however, if you notified me of changes so that they are available in the "official version", too.
Being the playful nerd I am, I changed some things in the plugin's sourcecode. There is a diff file available, although the list of changes is rather small:
amssymb and amsmath are now used, thus providing you with more symbols and equations.equation environment to the gather environment. I don't know if that makes sense.
Still, rendering some symbols such as \LaTeX doesn't work. Apparently, this is a restriction of LaTeX's math mode. However, the LaTeX plugin for kopete seems to handle this.
EDIT: I found a solution: If the plugin ignores any errors LaTeX encounters while trying to build the .dvi, the use of \TeX works in math mode. Download and apply this diff if you want a more kopete-like solution.
Explaining maths via Internet is a lot easier if you are able to displayformulas correctly, instead of typing things like:
e^(x + i*y ) = e^( x ) ( cos( y ) + i * sin( y )
Surprisingly, this problem is not quite solved. During my searches I found found the TeXIM Plugin, which should work with Gaim and amsn, thus allowing both Windows, MacOS, Linux and FreeBSD users to chat.
I, however, tried gaim-latex. The version in the ports of FreeBSD didn't work, so I downloaded the release version (0.3) at sourceforge and compiled it (you have to use gmake instead of the standard FreeBSD make). The resulting binary LaTeX.so is to be copied to ~/.gaim/plugins. Then Gaim has to be restarted and told to use this plugin - done.
There are also a number of other plugins out there, for example a MathMode plugin for Miranda (an ICQ client for Windows). But they don't work like gaim-latex or Kopete's plugin: Instead of typing $$ my Tex code $$ you have to use strings like [MathMode] [/MathMode] or something like that. There is definitely a need for some standards - or aren't there mathematicians longing for LaTeX conversations (please note the spelling!)?
I finally rewrote my console-based GPS mapping program "GPSCon". Users may now use command-line switches. Furthermore, referencing maps automatically works better and I daresay that the program is now actually usable by other people than me. GPSCon is downloadable on my homepage.
Quick introduction for users who have used GPSCon before (you should also take a closer look at the file README):
./gpscon -d /dev/cuaa0 -l gpscon.log
-r poi_data.txt -s-s tells GPSCon not to use auto-referencing, which
might be better in some casesHave fun with GPSCon and drop me a line if you like it.
To keep track of the internet traffic my family is causing, I wrote a little perl script that runs on the Soekris and displays the output of ipfstat. This works because ipf is able to count traffic by using rules such as:
count in on sis0 all
coun out on sis0 all
The perl script just parses the output of ipfstat -noia and displays it in a more or less fancy way. You may find the script among other things in the Soekris directory on my homepage.
Perhaps this is of some interest to other Soekris owners.