RGL Version 0.67-2 [r467 / 2006-07-11]

DESCRIPTION
The RGL package is a visualization device system for R, using 
OpenGL as the rendering backend. An rgl device at its core 
is a real-time 3D engine written in C++. It provides an 
interactive viewpoint navigation facility (mouse + wheel support)
and an R programming interface.

RELEASE INFO
This release includes a number of changes to allow the *3d functions to
work more like the standard plot functions in R.

CHANGES IN 0.67 
* Added support for png files with palettes, and grayscale pngs with
  1, 2 or 4 bits per pixel.

* Added "ignoreExtent" option to par3d:  objects plotted when this is
  true are ignored when calculating the bounding box.
  
* Added axis3d, axes3d, box3d, mtext3d, title3d functions from djmrgl
  for annotating plots.
    
* Added plot3d high level plot function.
  
* Added material3d, which can both set and query material properties;
  changed most *3d functions so they leave material invariant across
  calls.
    
* Changed open3d() to set background and material defaults.
  
* Added aspect3d to control the aspect ratio of the bounding box.
  
* Added xAxis, yAxis and zAxis mouse modes, set zAxis as r3d default.
  
* Added persp3d function.
  
* Changed error messages to go through REprintf in X11 and Mac OSX.
  
* Fixed segfault if rgl_init failed.
  
* Converted type of viewport arg in user2window and window2user calls.
  
* If the rgl_init call fails, the package will still load with a
  warning (but most function calls will result in errors).
    
* Added par3d("scale") to handle aspect3d operations internally.
  
* Added ellipse3d() generic and methods for drawing confidence
  ellipsoids.
  
* Added decorate3d() to draw all the decorations, plot3d.qmesh3d()
  method.
  
* Changed zoom to use ratio scale over larger range.
  
* Fixed bug causing jump after resize in Mac OSX (and maybe other
  platforms).
  
* rgl.primitive now does sanity checks on inputs.


CHANGES IN 0.66
* Changes for compatibility with strict enforcement of file naming rules in R 2.3.0.

* Fixed display list memory leak when drawing shapes (e.g. spheres)

* Added "all" and "viewpoint" to rgl.clear and clear3d

* Added static libpng build support and user customizable prefix (unix)

* Uses xyz.coords in all functions taking x, y, z coordinates, allowing
  matrix or dataframe arguments (among others)

* Added par3d(skipRedraw=TRUE) to allow drawing to be done without
  being rendered

WHATS NEW 0.65
* A native Mac OS X / Carbon version is shipped with this release.
  No need to start an X11 Server. 
  The X11 Port is still available, but configure defaults to use Carbon.

* The X11 port has been improved. The crash (using rgl.close() or rgl.quit()
  has been fixed.

* User-selectable mouse handlers featuring trackball navigation and 
  interactive selection.

* A new interface concept "R3D" is available for preview and discussion 
  using the function name pattern:
    XXX3d() 

  The functions map to rgl functions internally (with some exceptions).

  Here's a short list of interesting spots in the interface API:

  * par3d() can be used to get/set values on the current RGL device.

  * Primitives functions such as points3d(), lines3d(), surface3d(), ...

  * First bunch of generic transformation utilities, rendering methods 
    and mesh objects are implemented.

  The rgl interface using the pattern "rgl.XXX()" is still available.
  You can decide between more OpenGL/RGL'is low-level functions or
  more R'ish functions using the R3D interface concept.

* Rendering of blended surfaces using hierarchical z-sorting.

* New material property: Texture environment mapping

WEBSITE
http://rgl.neoscientists.org

