Design of next version

["Andrew D. Hwang" <ahwang@mathcs.holycross.edu>]

I'm starting to work more regularly on the design and coding of the next
major version of ePiX. Some of the goals are:

1. Better use of C++
 (a) Use of classes, the standard library, and namespaces
 (b) Improved modularity and organization of code
    For example, plots will no longer be output as they are generated;
    plot data will be stored in a collection of "1-skeleta" until the
    entire file is read, then will be printed. My plan is to implement
    hidden line removal eventually.

    The dependencies of header files will be less spaghetti-like.

2. More runtime-configurable options
 (a) Choice of output file type (eepic, pstricks, MetaPost...) This is of
    course facilitated by the separation of data generation from output.
 (b) Camera position and orientation, and the mapping from "object space"
    to the viewing plane (for 3-D plotting), with defaults suitable for
    2-D plotting.

Logistically, the code will be "released" with version number 0.9.x, which
should be considered alpha (similarly to the 2.odd.x Linux kernels). Don't
expect to produce usable figures with 0.9.x (at least not right away). :)

Suggestions of all sorts (user wishes, design ideas, implementations and
algorithms...) are very welcome, and are never more likely to be realized
than now. Please post to the list (preferable, for discussion) or send me
email.

Happy American Thanksgiving!

--Andy

Andrew D. Hwang			ahwang at mathcs dot holycross dot edu
Department of Math and CS	http://mathcs.holycross.edu/~ahwang
College of the Holy Cross	(508) 793-2458 (Office: 320 Swords)
Worcester, MA, 01610-2395	(508) 793-3530 (fax)