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*McGalla, Clayton M.
hwat is heidi
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32 Views, 1 Replies
04-18-2000 10:09 AM
OK I must be a moron, but what is heidi? I have problems with it at
times giving me fatal errors.
-Zeek
times giving me fatal errors.
-Zeek
*Weiss, Richard
What is heidi
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04-19-2000 05:04 PM in reply to:
*McGalla, Clayton M.
Clayton,
Thank you for inquiring.
Generally speaking, Heidi is the graphics engine used for video and
hardcopy output from AutoCAD and other Autodesk products such as 3D
Studio Max and Viz, VoloView and many other developer products such as
"3D Power Tools" and many drivers. The version 6.0 developer kit is
provided free to driver writers and developers world wide from our web
portal at http://www.autodesk.com/heidi . A comprehensive Guide is
updated periodically and is always live on the web at
http://www.autodesk.com/heididg .
In more detail, Heidi is Autodesk’s high-speed graphics solution.
Specifically, it is an immediate mode interface designed for the drawing
portion of graphics software construction activity. It is the critical
core component that coordinates many aspects of 3D graphics application
development. Basically, it provides application developers and
programmers writing drivers a dynamically configurable framework for
managing the graphics display of 2D and 3D objects, rendering and
shading. The technology also applies to hard-copy versions and
inter-application data transfer. Heidi’s rendering pipeline augments
graphics hardware through a scalable device interface.
Features and Functionality
Heidi offers driver writers and application developers many
features and functionality for managing graphics display and hardcopy
output:
Immediate mode—Heidi’s immediate mode drawing interface
(as opposed to a display list system such as HOOPS) is preferred by
applications developers who already retain their own graphics or
geometry database.
Geometry—Heidi’s primitive-based API incurs less function
call overhead than vertex-based APIs, such as GL. Heidi supports dots,
markers, polylines, polytriangles, polygons, ellipses, text, and images.
Parametric surfaces, NURBS, and other geometric types can be supported
through application specific tool kits.
Renderer Architecture— The ability to invoke and
interconnect multiple renderers at run time is a key Heidi feature.
Renderers are dynamically loaded. This allows an application to only
load those renderers it needs and to load new renderers while the
application is running (at the user's request, for example). New
renderers can be added to an application without recompiling. Users can
purchase renderers with additional capabilities from third-party vendors
and use them in any Heidi-based application. Renderers are connected to
each other so the advantages of each can be combined into one rendering
system. The "stackable renderer architecture" is actually a patented
feature of Heidi.
Hardware acceleration—Heidi takes advantage of hardware
acceleration either through standard interfaces such as OpenGL and
Direct 3D or by direct hardware access to specialized 3D chips: for
example GLiNT boards from 3D Labs.
Hard-copy output— The new Heidi Device Interface, HDI,
provides manufacturers and developers a complete environment for
creating immediate mode drivers for Hardcopy output from graphics
software. It is the same interface used in the AutoCAD 2000® plotting
enhancements. Heidi software also supports Microsoft's Windows System
Printer Driver, clipboard and metafile, plus specific drivers for GDI,
HPGL, HPGL2, Postscript and Raster.
Visualization and shading—Heidi supports flat, Gouraud,
Phong color contouring, transparency, and texture mapping. Through
plug-in renderers, Heidi enables developers to implement shadows,
extended material properties, ray tracing, radiosity, and other special
effects.
Viewing and modeling—Heidi supports multiple views,
orthographic, perspective and skewed projections, object scaling,
rotation and translation, camera pan, zoom, dolly, orbit, and roll.
Color models—Heidi supports RGB and indexed color modes.
It provides color-palette management and allows color-map sharing.
Shape engines—Heidi’s plug-in renderer mechanism allows
applications to implement specific kinds of draw commands called
engines. A Shape Engine and a Font Engine are already built into Heidi.
Selection—The Heidi system implements 2D and 3D geometric
primitive selection (picking) through a dynamically loadable library.
Please note that the Heidi developer kit is designed for use by high
level C++ graphics and hardcopy programmers and driver writers and as
such does not provide support. However the programming staff tunes in to
this discussion group to periodically address relevant technical
questions.
Visit our web portal, noted above, for more information and down
loading.
Down stream product users:
Occasionally users of products incorporating Heidi may find that
drivers developed by manufacturers of video boards or plotter devices
who make use of Heidi could show some anomalies with their systems. Very
often these are known errors for which fixes have been provided. If you
encounter such error messages take a look at the Autodesk discussion
groups for those products or make use of the information availalable at
autodesk.com.
"Clayton M. McGalla" wrote:
> OK I must be a moron, but what is heidi? I have problems with it at
> times giving me fatal errors.
> -Zeek
Thank you for inquiring.
Generally speaking, Heidi is the graphics engine used for video and
hardcopy output from AutoCAD and other Autodesk products such as 3D
Studio Max and Viz, VoloView and many other developer products such as
"3D Power Tools" and many drivers. The version 6.0 developer kit is
provided free to driver writers and developers world wide from our web
portal at http://www.autodesk.com/heidi . A comprehensive Guide is
updated periodically and is always live on the web at
http://www.autodesk.com/heididg .
In more detail, Heidi is Autodesk’s high-speed graphics solution.
Specifically, it is an immediate mode interface designed for the drawing
portion of graphics software construction activity. It is the critical
core component that coordinates many aspects of 3D graphics application
development. Basically, it provides application developers and
programmers writing drivers a dynamically configurable framework for
managing the graphics display of 2D and 3D objects, rendering and
shading. The technology also applies to hard-copy versions and
inter-application data transfer. Heidi’s rendering pipeline augments
graphics hardware through a scalable device interface.
Features and Functionality
Heidi offers driver writers and application developers many
features and functionality for managing graphics display and hardcopy
output:
Immediate mode—Heidi’s immediate mode drawing interface
(as opposed to a display list system such as HOOPS) is preferred by
applications developers who already retain their own graphics or
geometry database.
Geometry—Heidi’s primitive-based API incurs less function
call overhead than vertex-based APIs, such as GL. Heidi supports dots,
markers, polylines, polytriangles, polygons, ellipses, text, and images.
Parametric surfaces, NURBS, and other geometric types can be supported
through application specific tool kits.
Renderer Architecture— The ability to invoke and
interconnect multiple renderers at run time is a key Heidi feature.
Renderers are dynamically loaded. This allows an application to only
load those renderers it needs and to load new renderers while the
application is running (at the user's request, for example). New
renderers can be added to an application without recompiling. Users can
purchase renderers with additional capabilities from third-party vendors
and use them in any Heidi-based application. Renderers are connected to
each other so the advantages of each can be combined into one rendering
system. The "stackable renderer architecture" is actually a patented
feature of Heidi.
Hardware acceleration—Heidi takes advantage of hardware
acceleration either through standard interfaces such as OpenGL and
Direct 3D or by direct hardware access to specialized 3D chips: for
example GLiNT boards from 3D Labs.
Hard-copy output— The new Heidi Device Interface, HDI,
provides manufacturers and developers a complete environment for
creating immediate mode drivers for Hardcopy output from graphics
software. It is the same interface used in the AutoCAD 2000® plotting
enhancements. Heidi software also supports Microsoft's Windows System
Printer Driver, clipboard and metafile, plus specific drivers for GDI,
HPGL, HPGL2, Postscript and Raster.
Visualization and shading—Heidi supports flat, Gouraud,
Phong color contouring, transparency, and texture mapping. Through
plug-in renderers, Heidi enables developers to implement shadows,
extended material properties, ray tracing, radiosity, and other special
effects.
Viewing and modeling—Heidi supports multiple views,
orthographic, perspective and skewed projections, object scaling,
rotation and translation, camera pan, zoom, dolly, orbit, and roll.
Color models—Heidi supports RGB and indexed color modes.
It provides color-palette management and allows color-map sharing.
Shape engines—Heidi’s plug-in renderer mechanism allows
applications to implement specific kinds of draw commands called
engines. A Shape Engine and a Font Engine are already built into Heidi.
Selection—The Heidi system implements 2D and 3D geometric
primitive selection (picking) through a dynamically loadable library.
Please note that the Heidi developer kit is designed for use by high
level C++ graphics and hardcopy programmers and driver writers and as
such does not provide support. However the programming staff tunes in to
this discussion group to periodically address relevant technical
questions.
Visit our web portal, noted above, for more information and down
loading.
Down stream product users:
Occasionally users of products incorporating Heidi may find that
drivers developed by manufacturers of video boards or plotter devices
who make use of Heidi could show some anomalies with their systems. Very
often these are known errors for which fixes have been provided. If you
encounter such error messages take a look at the Autodesk discussion
groups for those products or make use of the information availalable at
autodesk.com.
"Clayton M. McGalla" wrote:
> OK I must be a moron, but what is heidi? I have problems with it at
> times giving me fatal errors.
> -Zeek
