Mixing 2D and 3D

[August Lammersdorf, InteractiveMesh]

 Hi Richard,

 thanks a lot for your detailed reply and the insights into your 
 intentions and ideas. The mailing list members will appreciate being 
 preferentially informed.

 "I think we already do multiple active cameras?"

 More precisely: simultaneous viewing from different points of view into 
 a single 3D scene graph was meant, i.e. several cameras are attached to 
 one scene graph.
 
 A SubScene has exactly one camera attached which renders the associated 
 scene graph into the corresponding SubScene's rectangle. Implementing 
 simultaneous viewing requires a cloned 3D scene graph for the second, 
 third, and so on SubScene/Camera. Material, Mesh, and Image objects can 
 be re-used because they are shareable. Animations of Nodes' Transforms 
 seem to be shareable as well. But Transitions (Rotate, Scale, Translate) 
 have to be cloned because they operate on a Node's methods directly. So, 
 simultaneous viewing seems practicable.

 "Key/ mouse / touch / etc should be there already?"
 
 Scene navigation and model interaction are often the first stumbling 
 blocks for developers with less 3D experience. A ready to go rotate, 
 zoom, and drag support including setting of arbitrary pivot points and 
 adjustment of the camera's clipping planes would overcome one's 
 inhibitions.
 
 "Node's properties and methods"

 Before I agree with all of your appraisals I would like to gain more 
 experiences with their 3D related implementations. For instance I wasn't 
 successful so far assigning a cursor to a Shape3D or receiving response 
 from any 'setOnMouseXXX' method.

 August