Welcome to Spring Dance

With Spring Dance you can:

• Make Elastic Interval Geometry more accessible
• Make it very easy to install and run-- This means I would like to create a native windows application, with installer and all the usual trappings that windows users have become accustomed too, and thus consider easy to use.
  
  
• Change the way EIG is displayed-- In order to build something complex in struck, you need to learn how to free view stereo. I want to make stereo viewing an option rather than requirement.  To do this intervals would be shown as cylinders or ellipsoids rather than lines.  I also want to explore other options of showing depth cues, such as shadows on the floor and fog.  To do this, the program will use the 3D graphic accelerated hardware that most computers come with today.
  
  
• Tap into the sodaplay Constructor phenomenon--Soda constructor has been mentioned on several mailing lists and groups I'm subscribed to, and seems to get very positive reactions from just about everyone that sees it. This may be the hook that makes EIG popular.  To achieve this, SpringDance will have a gravity feature.
  
  
• Run on GNU/Linux as well as windows-- This is a secondary goal, but i do not want to lock anyone into a proprietary product.

Target Audience:

Its target audience is education, and will be aimed as a teaching tool for the middle grades. (grades 6+) I there is a lot of  geometry and EIG information out there that the group has created, that just needs a little origination to become truly powerful force.  However I don't want to narrow the focus to the point that it will not be a useful tool for the members of the Fluidiom community.

Technology
For those that care about such things, here are the tools I plan to use:

• Delphi- This is a language im very familiar with and is ideal for making windows applications.  A Linux version will be available shortly.  (due mid February last i heard)
  
  
• OpenGL-  The cross platform way to access 3D accelerated hardware and is supported on Linux and windows.
  
  
• GLSecene- This is an open source library that makes using opengl much easier from delphi.
  
  
• XML- Besides being a standard way to format data, it makes SpringDance buzzword compliant :o)