As I've said in the Off-Topic board, I'm back, and settled in on my "new" Mac, after transitioning from Windows ME. And one of the things I miss is what I think is the nicest-looking hypercube visualisations, one made as a simple OpenGL/GLUT demo, "ViewTess".
Therein lies my post here!
A few years back, f00Dave had several OpenGL programs he hosted on his site- At present, he no longer hosts them, and because of that, and the lack of information supplied in the zipfile for ViewTess, I couldn't verify what the status of the program, and its source code, were, and therefore until tonight, I wasn't sure I could share it publicly.
Until I emailed f00Dave via gmail to ask about it, and whether it's OK to port & modify it. He said I can, as he considers it in the public domain, although he admits he neglected to specificly express that in the archive. (It was on the now-long-since-gone page on his site.)
So with his permission, I have posted it here, on Keiji's InvHost site.
What's in it? The source code (made for Borland C++ Compilerr), the Windows executable (needs the GLUT DLL for Windows), and a keys.txt file that explains SOME of the keys. There are no menus, just the Windows titlebar.
It is, simply, a simple, but nice-looking tesseract viewer, with both wireframes and solid prism-like faces. It's the latter that makes it beautiful to look at! You can rotate the 'cube in all four dimensions, in either direction, and in relation to each other....without being too complicated for the non-mathematical (such as myself)-- It's pretty 4D eye candy.
OK, then, WHY am I sharing it? One, so that those who haven't seen it (on Windows, or on x86 Linus with Wine), and so others can see why I have liked this program for the last few years; and for another, I need help in porting to OSX (I'm not a programmer, so I'm dumbfounded at trying to convert a Borland-based C++ project to something that can compile on OSX) and expanding this program to include a few more dimensions and shapes, and add true menus, true fullscreen (like a similar program, Jenn 3D), something that could make it even a good "screensaver".
So, as much as I'd like to share this program, I'm asking for help in getting this compiled for (my) Mac. And I do have permission to do so, including hosting both versions. (I can forward his email on request- Just email me at "quozl1" at "earthlink" dot "net" for proof of his permission.)
I love tesseracts and other n-dimensional shapes as truly amazing, and surrealistic eye candy....
Now, if the 5D Rubik's Cube could get ported to OSX...or at least Java...
....Or a nice non-wireframe hyperdie.....
Enough for my rambling, for now.
d.m.f.