Re: [Visualpython-users] installation success on Debian3.0-i386, and a hello

Many thanks for the helpful comments on installing VPython on Debian. When I
get my act together, I'll post these comments on the VPython web site.

Concerning how VPython is being used: I know of several different kinds of
uses.

Some scientists and engineers use it in their research to visualize data.
Sometimes the data come from some other program (C, Fortran) but get looked
at in 3D in VPython. While there are various 3D data visualization packages,
there is often an advantage to being able to write a custom 3D data display
under the flexible control of a programming language, hence the research
value of VPython.

Sometimes intro programming course use Python as the language, which is a
good choice for introducing the elements of programming, including
object-oriented programming. I know of at least one case where VPython is
used in such a course, because it is more motivating to make 3D animations
than to print tables of Fibonacci numbers. VPython also helps enormously in
getting across the notion of an object (since the object has a striking
visual representation), attributes, etc.

As you guessed, some instructors especially in physics use VPython to create
3D visualization to show in class as lecture demos. There are examples of
this in the demo suite that comes with VPython, and in the set of demos for
intro physics available at http://www4.ncsu.edu/~rwchabay/mi.

In a modern introductory physics curriculum developed by Ruth Chabay and me
(Matter & Interactions; see previous URL), students themselves write VPython
programs to model physical systems and to visualize electric and magnetic
fields in 3D. Computer modeling is a central aspect of our textbook. This
new curriculum is in use at a number of colleges and universities.

In the University of Maryland physics department Ellen Williams teaches a
computational physics course in which students write VPython programs.

Bruce Sherwood

----- Original Message -----
From: "gelfand" <ge...@la...>
To: <vis...@li...>
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 6:34 PM
Subject: [Visualpython-users] installation success on Debian3.0-i386, and a
hello


> I started playing with vpython a week or two ago, and since I
> noticed that many of the posts on this list concern
> platform-specific problems I thought I'd report some details
> of a straightforward success.
>
> CPU is a Celeron 300A, video a Matrox G100.
>
> With Debian 3.0, the following packages should be installed
> in order to run visual python (if this ever becomes an
> official Debian package, it should be called python2.2-visual)
>
> python2.2
> python2.2-numeric
> python2.2-numeric-ext
> python2.2-tk
> xlibmesa3
> libgtk1.2
> libglib1.2
> gtkglarea5
>
> as well as glibc and the c++ standard libraries which are almost
> certainly on the system already.
>
> If you want to compile cvisualmodule.so you'll need the development
> packages gtkglarea-dev, python2.2-dev, xlibmesa-dev, libgtk1.2-dev,
> libglib1.2-dev --- but if anyone is interested I can supply the
> compiled module and save you the trouble.  If I can find the time
> to learn how to make a Debian package I'll roll one.
>
> The only "issues" I've encountered concern cursor-hiding (apparently
> not implemented in the GL library) and program killing (closing
> one or more of the display windows doesn't always do the trick,
> sometimes I have to ctrl-z in the shell and then kill -9 %1;
> sys.exit() in the code doesn't work, though os._exit(0) will do the
> trick).
>
> On another note, I'm wondering how folks are using vpython-based
> programs:  "virtual" demonstrations in classes? part of
> laboratory work?  student assignments?  Is there a venue other than
> this to discuss applications?
>
> Finally, thanks to the authors/contributors for a nice piece of software!
>
> --Marty
>
> Martin Gelfand
>
> Associate Professor.............Phone: 970 491 5263
> Department of Physics.............Fax: 970 491 7947
> Colorado State University.......Email: ge...@la...
> Fort Collins CO 80523-1875
>
>
>
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