VRML - Contact vs Cortona vs Octagon

Author

Contact vs Cortona vs Octagon

Dale

2004-02-16, 12:28 am

Contact vs Cortona vs Octagon

Are any of these people actually making money? Is the market really big
enough for three players?

First, let's talk about Octaga, the bottom of the heap. I hate it when I
tell someone exactly why I don't like their software, and they come back
with some whiny "Oh, that works according to spec" or "We've had no
complaints" crap. Hello, I'm complaining! And I'm a coder so I know what I'm
talking about and how to fix it. I'm doing you a favor, so don't come back
with some whiny attitude.

Here's what I don't like about the Octagon player:
1. WRL files take much longer to load than with Contact or Cortona (even
when they're local!).
2. Navigation is sluggish compared to Contact. Contact's navigation seems
more intuitive.
3. The Ctrl-key modifier for changing navigation mode is unavailable
(Contact changes from Examine to Pan).
4. The quality of the scene is low and doesn't change after I change it in
Preferences.
5. Keyboard shortcuts such as Page Up and Page Down for cycling through
viewpoints are unavailable.
6. The player crashes when attempting to read a file that Contact has no
problem with. But you can't tell that it's having a problem, because the
error box is behind the progress box.
7. Can't do PROTOs.

How is it that people with a half-assed product like that can be getting
funding? Where is the justice?

Next there's Cortona. Cortona is okay, navigation still not as good as
Contact. On my website at http://3dskimaps.com/Loveland/, for example,
Cortona doesn't let me pan or zoom. Why is that? These are views of ski
mountains with units in meters, so maybe I have to do something to my
avatar. But I don't have to do that for Contact, why should I have to do
that for Cortona and Octagon?

Cortona doesn't handle Text nodes as well as Contact. On my Loveland map, I
placed Text node labels for the ski trails to be a few meters above the
surface. But in Cortona, they sometimes intersect with the surface and
partially disappear. How could that happen? Doesn't happen in Contact. In
Contact in Walk mode you can walk under the labels, no way they should be
intersecting with the surface.

Cortona also chokes on some of my VRML objects. Why is that? To label the
ski lifts, I made a PROTO to make a LiftLabel object with a very flat red
cylinder with a white lift number on it and the height in feet and meters
off to the side. I suspect these are what make Octagon crash, and they just
don't appear in Cortona. Is that too much for you guys to handle,
ParallelGraphics so-called programmers? The lift labels look good in
Contact.

But hey! Cortona for the Mac, Mac OS X, Pocket PC! Can't complain too much
about a company that goes cross-platform.

Then there's my fave, Contact (could you guess?). Contact navigates like a
hot knife through butter, and it has easing functions to accelerate and
decelerate at the end of each movement. By contrast, Cortona disappears
momentarily, kind of jerks around. Contact's Viewpoint navigation animation
is smoother too. And keyboard navigation and modifier keys! In Examine mode,
hold down the ctrl key to pan. Use the arrow keys to navigate. Hold down the
shift key to speed up arrow key navigation.

Contact pans and zooms quickly and predictably. I suspect that they
normalize the pan/zoom speed to the size of the model being displayed. See
ParallelGraphics, it's not hard, if they can do it you can do it.

The only complaint I have about Contact is the difficulty of making the
Examine center of rotation change. If I play around with a model long
enough, I can make it happen, but I don't know why it happens. Meanwhile, it
keeps flopping around one corner of the model while I'm trying to negotiate
it into place for the feature I want to view.

Also, Contact only runs on Windows, okay, so two complaints about Contact.
Okay, one more complaint. Why is there Blaxxun and Bit Management? Can't
they get their stories straight? Why two companies for the same product?

___
DMGreer, LLC
www.dmgreer.com

Eckhard M. J?ger

2004-02-16, 2:30 pm

Hello Dale,
i can agree with some things. I wrote lot of emails about problems,
bugs and suggestions and they didn't fix it or change it.
Contact is nice but it is available on Win only and can installed
automaticly only on IE (but it is possible at Netscape/Mozilla too:
(http://www.mozilla.org/catalog/architecture/xpinstall/).

Cortona is not fast and smooth as Contact but it has an automatic
install for IE and Netscape/Mozilla and some nice parameter about
embedding. But spmetimes i think they fix a problem and create by that
a new one. Textures on ATI graphic cards didn't look nice as on Nvidia
cards since Cortona 4.0. Anybody knows the Mac version is an
uncomplete and buggy version (my mac crashes trying it on os 9). So i
wish there would be a mac version that acts like the win version
without the bugs.

More nice stuff would be created using vrml or x3d when mac is fully
supported because many designers that made the nice stuff work on mac
and customers mostly like technologies that work on win and mac.

As i know blaxxun create now the server based software and
Bitmanagement create the client.

Octagon is new and they work hard to improve it hope next time there
is support for other browsers then IE and an XPI install.

What i'm missing too is an EAI and JS EAI that works with any JVM and
on any browser (at the moment it works only with MS JVM and Javascript
works only in IE).

Karamba!
>
> ::Bart::VRMLsuck
> http://www.neeneenee.de/vrml/
> http://www.neeneenee.de/vrml/forum/

Hope too somebody read that mesages

Holger Grahn

2004-02-18, 4:19 pm

Hi Dale,

interesting summary

> The only complaint I have about Contact is the difficulty of making the
> Examine center of rotation change.
There is now the convention placing examine center into
NavigationInfo.avatarSize[3..5]

X3D has added a new field for centerOfRotation  to the Viewpoint node.

>If I play around with a model long
> enough, I can make it happen, but I don't know why it happens. Meanwhile,
it
> keeps flopping around one corner of the model while I'm trying to
negotiate
> it into place for the feature I want to view.

If you are viewing from outside a scene (boundig box) the center is ok I
think,
its difficult to find a good automatic center if you are inside an scene or
even worse if there  is VRML type HUD in place.

Then if you press F3 - Seek to point, this point will move towards the
center and  will set a new examine center.

> Also, Contact only runs on Windows, okay, so two complaints about Contact.
> Okay, one more complaint. Why is there Blaxxun and Bit Management? Can't
> they get their stories straight? Why two companies for the same product?

Contact 3D was developed by me and later licenced by blaxxun Inc/Ag know as
black sun and latter blaxxun.
These companies are not operating any more.
The focus of the company "blaxxun technologies GmbH" now owning the domains
is selling the community platform.

Greetings
Holger

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2004-02-18, 5:28 pm

> Contact 3D was developed by me and later licenced by blaxxun Inc/Ag know as
> black sun and latter blaxxun.

Are we talking about http://online.cs.nps.navy.mil/x3d/cd1/source/index.html ?

> These companies are not operating any more.

So what is the current license status of the blaxxun CC3D 4.3 source code ?

And more important: what is the current license status of the modifications
for Linux/Unix/MacOSX ? For example: Would it be legal to public binaries
of the Linux/Unix/MacOSX cc3dglut browser ?

> The focus of the company "blaxxun technologies GmbH" now owning the domains
> is selling the community platform.

But from my point of view, it looks like they still decide over the
restrictions of the blaxxun CC3D 4.3 source code license.

so long
MUFTI
--
Ihr CDROM Licht wird auf einige Sekunden drehen, ...
(aus einem Softwarehandbuch)

Cecile Muller

2004-02-19, 1:28 am

> There is now the convention placing examine center into
> NavigationInfo.avatarSize[3..5]

Btw, cf this post on the subject (with code for enabling that behavior
in your scenes) : http://vrml.base.com/forums/viewtop...ghlight=examine

R. Russell Kinter

2004-02-26, 1:29 am

I agree with your rant about Octagon. When I make stuff that works
virtually
identically in three VRML browsers Contact, Cortona and Cosmo, I would
sort
of expect minimal compatibility probs getting the worlds to function
in a new
browser like Octagon, but it has no robustness when it comes to
scripts and
won't load Protos as you indicated. Imagine! a five year old
unsupported
browser like Cosmo blowing its doors off. In fact when it comes to
handling VRML, WorldView is even better! 'Bout the only thing I can
say is
the parent company of Octagon should have not made it a 'tween
browser.
('tween VRML and X3D) Biting off more then they can chew IMHO.

"Dale" <dmgreer@nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message news:<c0petu$n2o@library1.airnews.net>...
> Contact vs Cortona vs Octagon
>
> Are any of these people actually making money? Is the market really big
> enough for three players?
>
> First, let's talk about Octaga, the bottom of the heap. I hate it when I
> tell someone exactly why I don't like their software, and they come back
> with some whiny "Oh, that works according to spec" or "We've had no
> complaints" crap. Hello, I'm complaining! And I'm a coder so I know what I'm
> talking about and how to fix it. I'm doing you a favor, so don't come back
> with some whiny attitude.
>
> Here's what I don't like about the Octagon player:
> 1. WRL files take much longer to load than with Contact or Cortona (even
> when they're local!).
> 2. Navigation is sluggish compared to Contact. Contact's navigation seems
> more intuitive.
> 3. The Ctrl-key modifier for changing navigation mode is unavailable
> (Contact changes from Examine to Pan).
> 4. The quality of the scene is low and doesn't change after I change it in
> Preferences.
> 5. Keyboard shortcuts such as Page Up and Page Down for cycling through
> viewpoints are unavailable.
> 6. The player crashes when attempting to read a file that Contact has no
> problem with. But you can't tell that it's having a problem, because the
> error box is behind the progress box.
> 7. Can't do PROTOs.
>
> How is it that people with a half-assed product like that can be getting
> funding? Where is the justice?
>
>
> Next there's Cortona. Cortona is okay, navigation still not as good as
> Contact. On my website at http://3dskimaps.com/Loveland/, for example,
> Cortona doesn't let me pan or zoom. Why is that? These are views of ski
> mountains with units in meters, so maybe I have to do something to my
> avatar. But I don't have to do that for Contact, why should I have to do
> that for Cortona and Octagon?
>
> Cortona doesn't handle Text nodes as well as Contact. On my Loveland map, I
> placed Text node labels for the ski trails to be a few meters above the
> surface. But in Cortona, they sometimes intersect with the surface and
> partially disappear. How could that happen? Doesn't happen in Contact. In
> Contact in Walk mode you can walk under the labels, no way they should be
> intersecting with the surface.
>
> Cortona also chokes on some of my VRML objects. Why is that? To label the
> ski lifts, I made a PROTO to make a LiftLabel object with a very flat red
> cylinder with a white lift number on it and the height in feet and meters
> off to the side. I suspect these are what make Octagon crash, and they just
> don't appear in Cortona. Is that too much for you guys to handle,
> ParallelGraphics so-called programmers? The lift labels look good in
> Contact.
>
> But hey! Cortona for the Mac, Mac OS X, Pocket PC! Can't complain too much
> about a company that goes cross-platform.
>
>
> Then there's my fave, Contact (could you guess?). Contact navigates like a
> hot knife through butter, and it has easing functions to accelerate and
> decelerate at the end of each movement. By contrast, Cortona disappears
> momentarily, kind of jerks around. Contact's Viewpoint navigation animation
> is smoother too. And keyboard navigation and modifier keys! In Examine mode,
> hold down the ctrl key to pan. Use the arrow keys to navigate. Hold down the
> shift key to speed up arrow key navigation.
>
> Contact pans and zooms quickly and predictably. I suspect that they
> normalize the pan/zoom speed to the size of the model being displayed. See
> ParallelGraphics, it's not hard, if they can do it you can do it.
>
> The only complaint I have about Contact is the difficulty of making the
> Examine center of rotation change. If I play around with a model long
> enough, I can make it happen, but I don't know why it happens. Meanwhile, it
> keeps flopping around one corner of the model while I'm trying to negotiate
> it into place for the feature I want to view.
>
> Also, Contact only runs on Windows, okay, so two complaints about Contact.
> Okay, one more complaint. Why is there Blaxxun and Bit Management? Can't
> they get their stories straight? Why two companies for the same product?
>
> ___
> DMGreer, LLC
> www.dmgreer.com