Inventor - a toolkit for writing 3D programs

       Programming  3D  graphics applications with Inventor results in large-scale productivity increases.  This
       also increases with time as more tools utilize the Inventor paradigm, user interfaces, and standard  file
       format.

       The  OpenInventor3DToolkit  is an object-oriented toolkit that simplifies and abstracts the task of
       writing graphics programming into a set of easy to use objects.  These objects range from low-level data-
       centered objects such as Sphere, Camera, Material, Light,  and  Group,  to  high-level  application-level
       objects  such  as  Walk  Viewer  and  Material  Editor.  The foundation concept in Inventor is the "scene
       database" which defines the objects to be used in an application.   When  using  Inventor,  a  programmer
       creates,  edits, and composes these objects into hierarchical 3D scene graphs (i.e. database).  A variety
       of fundamental application tasks such as rendering, picking, event handling, and file reading/writing are
       built-in operations of all objects in the database and thus are simple to invoke.

       Since Inventor is object-oriented (written in C++), it encourages programmers to  extend  the  system  by
       writing  new  objects.  Inventor users have created a variety of new objects that are not included in the
       product, such as: Bezier surfaces, CSG objects, animation objects, special viewers, and many more.

       Note that the rendering mechanism inside Inventor objects employs OpenGL.  Thus,  during  rendering  each
       object  automatically  makes  the  proper,  efficient  calls  to OpenGL.  Furthermore, Inventor rendering
       supports a caching scheme which automatically generates very fast  renderings  of  the  database  without
       traversal overheads.

       Inventor  picking  is extremely efficient and does not utilize rendering.  Furthermore, picking returns a
       variety of 3D information and detail about what objects were picked.  A sorted list of picked objects and
       corresponding information is returned to the programmer.  Picking is so fast that programs can perform 3D
       locate highlighting as the mouse moves across a 3D window.

       A  list  of  online documentation is available in the General FAQ section of the web site provided at the
       end of this man page.

       The Inventor 3D File Format is SGI's standard for 3D data.  The format supports both an ASCII and private
       binary format.  The binary format is network-neutral and thus can be exported across machine boundaries.

       Inventor defines a event model for writing 3D interaction.  This model is window system independent.   It
       is  quite easy to use and makes 3D direct manipulation programming possible.  Inventor includes a variety
       of interactive 3D objects and tools for writing interactive objects, such as: Manipulators, Draggers, and
       Projectors.  The flexible event model encourages programmers to extend the system to support new  devices
       and event types.

       Inventor - a toolkit for writing 3D programs

       drop, gview, SceneViewer, ivcat, ivview, maze, noodle, qmorf, revo, showcase, textomatic

       http://oss.sgi.com/projects/inventor/Inventor(1)

       The Inventor Toolkit includes source code to NUMEROUS programs and examples.