Subject: DX goes open source

From: Richard Gillilan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 12:46:43 -0400

Sorry if this has already been posted. I'm, temporarily off the list
but thought this would be of real interest. The IBM Data Explorer
visualization software that we have used for a number of years
has officially gone open source and can be obtained free from
the web site (OpenDX.org). 

 Richard Gillilan
 Cornell Theory Center

-------------------------------------------------

The long awaited announcement is now public. Source code will officially
be
released in two days.
http://www.ibm.com/dx

As a founding member of the OpenDX.org, I'm happy to answer any
questions
that aren't answered on the website(s).

Cheers,

Chris Pelkie
Scientific Visualization Producer
Cornell Theory Center
618 Rhodes Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-3801
[email-masked]

---

From: Andrew Dalke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 13:33:15 -0600

Richard Gillilan <[email-masked]> said:
> The IBM Data Explorer visualization software that we have used
> for a number of years has officially gone open source and can
> be obtained free from the web site (OpenDX.org). 

And if anyone is interested, here are instructions for getting
the source to compile on IRIX 6.5 using the 7.2 C/C++ compiler.

1) download the source (and examples) from
      http://www.research.ibm.com/dx/download/

2) The configuration code uses the value of SHELL rather than
/bin/sh, so if you have a non-sh compatible shell (like tcsh)
you are best off starting 'sh' then doing
   SHELL=/bin/sh
   export SHELL

3) If you want to use SGI's C++ compiler over GNU, you also need
to set the CXX environment variable to "CC", as in
   CXX=CC
   export CXX

4) Configure by running "./configure"

5) The default 'make' on SGIs isn't very good.  Use "smake" or
GNU make ("gmake" or "gnumake") instead.  This can best be
done by adding

  #!/usr/sbin/smake

to the top of the newly created Makefile.  The normal make will
restart with the #! indicated make if given.

This is needed for compiling dx because otherwise every time
you run "make" it will try to recompile some of the files.  This
is annoying because it will try to recompile even when using
"make install" after the system has been built.

6) The file "src/exec/libdx/memory.c" didn't compile because of
the code:
===
#ifdef SYSTYPE_SVR4
            if (inv->inv_class==INV_MEMORY && inv->inv_type==INV_MAIN) {
                physmem = (uint)((double)inv->inv_state / 1024. / 1024.);
                break;
            }
#else
            if (inv->class==INV_MEMORY && inv->type==INV_MAIN) {
                physmem = (uint)((double)inv->inv_state / 1024. / 1024.);
                break;
            }
#endif  /* SVR4 */
===

It is supposed to use the first block but instead uses the second.
Easiest fix is to replace #ifdef with #ifndef .

7) Once the "#!" was added, "make" it.

8) Become root and "make install".  There is a problem with the
code -- some of it assumes data files are in "/usr/lpp/dx" instead
of "/usr/local/dx" and it will complain about missing files during
startup.  The only fix I know so far is to make a symbolic link,
as in

  cd /usr
  ln -s local lpp

9) Some of the help files are sym linked to themselves.

val> pwd
/usr/local/dx/help
val> ls -l GarHelpDir BMHelpDir
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys           28 May 27 10:48 BMHelpDir ->
  /usr/local/dx/help/MBHelpDir
lrwxr-xr-x    1 root     sys           29 May 27 10:48 GarHelpDir ->
  /usr/local/dx/help/GarHelpDir

There is no fix for this, but it hasn't been a problem (yet?).

10) To use the sample files, set the environment variable DXDATA
to point to your dxsamples-4.0/data directory.

11) Start the program by running "/usr/local/dx/bin_sgi/startupui".

There may be other ways to start it, but I'm not sure what they
are.  Also, looking at the memory usage with "gmemusage", at least
some of the time DX wants up to 400 MB of memory.  If you run
"dxui" directly, it seems to keep that memory need, but starting
>from the startupui makes that need be only transient.  I don't
understand the behaviour, but it may be because dxui isn't meant
to be started directly.

Then take a look at some of the Chemistry extensions developed
by Richard Gililan and others at the Theory Center, under

    http://www.tc.cornell.edu/DX/

						Andrew Dalke
						[email-masked]