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From: sundar@ai.mit.edu (Sundar Narasimhan)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x,comp.graphics
Subject: Re: 3d rotation in room coords?
Message-ID: <13781@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 7 Mar 91 03:27:59 GMT
References: <9103050342.AA20065@maui.coral.com> <13709@life.ai.mit.edu>
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Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
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In article <13709@life.ai.mit.edu>, sundar@ai.mit.edu (Sundar Narasimhan) writes:
|> In article <9103050342.AA20065@maui.coral.com>, tomt@maui.coral.COM (Tom Tulinsky) writes:
|> |> 
|> |> I'd like to allow the user to do 3d rotations of an object in the
|> |> 'room' coordinate system; i.e. y is toward the ceiling, x is to his
|> 
|> [ He basically wanted to view a room and be able to move his eye point
|> [ under mouse control. In response to this I wrote ...]
|>
|> Think of viewing the object from the surface of a sphere. Your eye
|> point can be specified by 2 co-ordinates (you can think of them
|> as latitude and longitude). Have your mouse motion map to these
|> co-ordinates ...

I have since been informed that Apple may have a patent pending on 
using this technique. I believe that this technique is NOT new, and
it could be classified as common knowledge amongst people in the 
graphics community.

Although I have not seen the actual patent application, I find it
somewhat disgusting that software companies are now seeking to
patent anything and everything under the sun. If you are too,
I'd advise you join the LPF (League for Programming Freedom) by
sending mail to league@prep.ai.mit.edu.

I'd also be interested in hearing about the actual patent application
and what it covers from anyone who knows about this.

Thanks in advance.