Posted-Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 14:20:34 -0800
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 93 14:20:34 -0800
From: Stephan Keith FFD <keith@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
Message-Id: <9303042220.AA05265@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov>
To: rman@aero.org
Subject: RenderMan RIB Repository
Cc: keith@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov


The ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Computer Graphics Courseware Repository
(CGCR) sponsored by the ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee and
Georgia State University, has established a directory for Renderman
RIB files on this ftp accessible facility. Scott Owen is the
Director of the CGCR.

The repository is open to any who wish to submit RenderMan RIB[TM] files,
and any necessary shaders.  Scott has left it to me to suggest what may be
useful to submit to the RenderMan directory, as well as some of the things
we should not do, since we are working with potentially proprietary
materials.

Fundamental issues regarding any submission to the repository follow.
Please use the requisite common sense regarding legal and professional
issues as it may regard your submission.

1. Numero uno:  do not submit any RIB file, or any shader, which is
proprietary.  If you develop an image represented by a RIB file which
employed the resources of your company, you should acquire clear approval
before submitting them.

2. All RIB and filter submissions should be in ASCII.  Whether you use a
Macintosh, SGI IRIS, NeXT, SUN, or Etc, ASCII RIB and shader files make the
submissions generally platform independent.  You should include any
documentation which may make your RIBs platform dependent.

3. All submissions become public domain.  You may want to copyright the
files, employing the shareware concept of providing access to the data, but
providing some legal lein for credit for the ideas represented in the file.  

4. Include comments in your RIB file which give credit to the
individual or individuals, and/or company, who provided resources/talent 
to create the RIB file. Include a disclaimer that the file has been
approved for general distribution.  Include email contact information should we
have a question about your submission.


The basic idea behind this endeavor is to not just make RIB files
available, but distribute techniques and ideas about how to make use of
this technology.  You should include some discussion about what you did,
why you did it, how; any references employed to create the methods.  Help
the reader recreate your thinking processes.

Submission of multiple files may be a problem.  Here is my initial
suggestion.  Take any files you want to submit, which may be RIB, shader
and/or description files, and put them into some local directory you name.
Following this, tar and compress the directory.  When we uncompress and de-tar 
the directory, it will already be in a directory.  Once we have determined that
all the legal disclaimers are in the files, the information will
subsequently appear in the Renderman subdirectory on the cgcr server.
We reserve the right to decline the acceptance of any submission.

How to get in:

1. ftp cgcr.gsu.edu
2. password: cgcr
3. cd tmp
4. put <myfile_I_tarred_and_compressed.tar.Z>

How to get Renderman based RIB files:

1. ftp cgcr.gsu.edu
2. password: cgcr
3. cd pub/Renderman
4. get <a_submitted_RIB_file>

That is all for now.  If you have any suggestions about how to improve this
process, give me an email call at keith@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov.


Stephan R. Keith
Project Lead, Scientific Visualization
Sterling Federal Systems
National Fullscale Aerodynamics Complex
NASA Ames Research Center

Disclaimer: any opinions or activities expressed here are based upon a
volunteer activity which we believe may serve the community at large, and
do not represent SIGGRAPH, Sterling Software, NASA, or Georgia State
University.