Instructional Lab

The instructional lab machines are in Hill 248, 250 and 252. For this class, we'll be using the linux workstations in Hill 248 (the "cereal" machines), and the Solaris workstations in Hill 252 (the "Italian food" machines). (Avoid the ancient Linux boxes in Hill 250.) See the instructional lab web page for information and policies regarding these machines.

You will need to be logged on console (sitting in front of the actual machine) to display OpenGL windows. You won't be able to display these windows remotely from X terminals (you can of course, edit and compile remotely).

A slash card is needed to access the rooms in that hallway. A deposit of $3.50 is required to receive your slash card. DCS graduate students already have one. Look here to find out how to get this back at the end of the semester. If your slash card does not open the lab (or opens only one of these rooms), send email to rtoth@cs.rutgers.edu.

Software

The software for the projects in this class is on the cereal machines. Note that the software has not been installed on the machine called cereal (which I believe you cannot even log into, anymore).

The OpenGL library is installed on the cereal machines, as well as GL4Java (a Java API for OpenGL), part of Java3D, and GLUT and GLUI (a GUI that works with OpenGL in C/C++).

The Solaris cereal machines run Java 1.3 and gcc 2.95.2; the Linux machines run Java 1.4 and gcc 3.2.

Setting up

To use the course software, you will need to add the following line to your .cshrc:

     source ~decarlo/523/setup

(You will also need to type this line in your shell for just the first time you do this---for each window separately; next time you log in, it will be done automatically, since you added it to your .cshrc.)

If you plan on working anywhere else, you're on your own. You'll need GLUT and GLUI for C++, and GL4Java and Java3D for Java.

Here are some things that you might find helpful:

• The Java archive ~decarlo/class/javax.jar (which is just a small piece of the Java3D API) has classes to work with vectors and such. You can use this instead of installing all of Java3D yourself.

• GLUI for Linux is precompiled, and is available in ~decarlo/523/software/glui-linux.tar.gz.

• GLUT and GLUI for Solaris are precompiled, and are available in ~decarlo/523/software/glut-glui-solaris.tar.gz.

• GLUI for Cygwin (and a Makefile for OpenGL/GLUT/GLUI programs) are in ~decarlo/523/software/glui-cygwin.tar.gz.
  Note that the GLUI that comes with Cygwin is broken (right now, anyway).

• GLUT is available precompiled for Win32 here. I suspect you'll have to compile GLUI yourself.

Handing in

We will be using the electronic handin program on the cereal machines.

Type "man handin" for details on the use of this program. Briefly, you will "cd" into the directory which contains the files you want to hand in. Then you type (to hand in the files "file1.java" and "file2.java" for the first project, cs523-proj1):
    handin cs523-proj1 file1.java file2.java

Note: You can only hand in files, not directories. In addition, all of these files must be in the current directory, and not in any subdirectories (i.e. - you cannot hand in the file "stuff/file1.java"). You will get an error message if you try and do this.

Please try not to hand in "junk" (i.e. no ".class" or other binary files).

The first argument to handin above is the project "name". You will be told what this is on each project.

You can hand in as often as you like (old versions are overwritten). There is no way of removing one of the files you handed in. If you want to do this, simply hand in an empty file using the same filename. Once you hand in, you can check on what you handed in by typing:
    handin -l cs523-proj1

and you will see a listing of the submitted files.

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