Oct 06 2003
A cool tool — needing some updating
Blast from the past:
The picture above is two views of a VRML (Virtual Reality Model Language) file representing a gastropod (OK, snail)….
If you look at a number of shells – nautoloids, gastropods (snails), pelecypods (clams) — have a shape that can be derived from a log spiral function.
Harkening back to my geo-days — I actually am a geologist, I don’t just play one on the Internet— I was involved in assisting with the development of a really nice little learning module that focused on accretionary shells – specifically the Raup Model.One of the projects I was involved in brought a a team of students and a faculty member (Paul Smith, now department head) together to create a program that allowed students in the paleontology classes to modify 4 parameters, click draw, and then produce a VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling language) version of a shell. Using a VRML plugin, students could view the shape, then return to the form and re-generate the shape. Totally cool…
Only problem is, the program (a CGI program written in Perl) produces VRML …
which is not the easiest file type to find a plugin for these days. So.. the program has been sitting idle…
Good news is that I did find a new plugin …
It’s from a company called Parallel Graphics, and the plug-in is the Cortona VRML Client. You can download/install the plug-in by accessing http://www.parallelgraphics.com/products/cortona, and following the directions provided.
However… I’m wanting to perhaps free ourselves of the CGI program and go standalone. I’ve seen some Java versions.. like the Gildner Paleo Home Page. Cool — but I am still looking for that ability to rotate, and to jack up the “W” to get the clams…
I’m wondering… does anyone have some good pointers on how to do something like this in Flash? Is this something Flash can do? We have the Perl program… I’m just loooking for some pointers as to where we might look to study this further…
Any ideas would be really appreciated!
By the way, if you have installed the plugin, and want to see some of these… they are so cool…
Trick with the plugin, click on “Fit” (lower right button), then switch to study mode (lets you rotate these easy…)
SO COOL!!