Re: [Caml-list] (Mostly) Functional Design?

[Jon Harrop <jon@ffconsultancy.com>]

On Tuesday 19 July 2005 18:13, Paul Snively wrote:
> I guess I should mention that I am in the process of attempting to
> build an F-Rep-based geometric modeling kernel in O'Caml,

You mean like this?

  http://cis.k.hosei.ac.jp/~F-rep/

> with eventual visualization integration with lablGL.

LablGL is excellent, BTW. You may find some of my work useful if you're 
learning it:

  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/ocaml_for_scientists/visualisation/
  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/free/maze/
  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/free/ray_tracer/
  http://www.ffconsultancy.com/free/ray_tracer/comparison.html

> I think O'Caml is 
> incredibly well-suited to this task, but as I'm still very much in
> the process of mastering O'Caml at the same time I'm trying to
> understand F-Rep systems, collaboration would be welcome.

I think you will find OCaml to be dangerously well suited to this task. I've 
used OCaml for several somewhat-similar projects and find OCaml to be 
enormously more productive than C++ (my previous "favourite language").

I am working full-time on our presentation software so I can't afford any time 
to work on new stuff. However, there is probably some overlap and I am 
willing to open source some interesting and useful parts of our code.

> Ultimately 
> the goal is to develop a 3D modeling system competitive and
> collaborative with the UnrealEd etc. tools included with the Unreal
> technology based games, but there are many subprojects that have to
> happen first, and a good F-Rep kernel seems like an excellent
> starting point.

That sounds like a great project. Best of luck with that. :-)

-- 
Dr Jon D Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
Technical Presentation Software
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/presenta