We're waiting on JDK 1.2 beta4 until Java3D beta1 is available,
because JDK 1.2 beta 4 is incompatible with the current Java3D
alpha3 (and Java3D beta1 will be incompatible with JDK 1.2 beta3).
The switch to JDK 1.2 beta4 will require changing the name of
the swing packages (predicted long ago by Don Murray) and
changing some Java2D rendering hints, in the VisAD source.
There was a bunch of great news about Java3D at last week's
Siggraph conference:
We saw demos of Java3D running in a browser and Sun will soon
release the plug-in that makes this possible (I know that you and
other clever folks have already run VisAD in browsers, but now it
will be supported by Sun).
Java3D is now compatible with JIT compilers and native threads,
and much better compilers (e.g., HotSpot) are coming soon.
There is lots of action on porting Java3D to Solaris x86,
Linux, and other platforms.
**** All of us on this list should let SGI, IBM, HP, Apple
and other computer vendors know that we want Java3D. ****
By the way, nice to meet you and other VisAD developers at
the Siggraph conference.
----------------------------------------------------------
Bill Hibbard, SSEC, 1225 W. Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706
whibbard@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 608-263-4427 fax: 608-263-6738
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~billh/vis.html
