9.4.2 Transporting Mathematica Files to Geomview by Hand

The auxilliary function WriteChunk is for those who can only use Mathematica on a computer that Geomview isn't installed on. WriteChunk[file, graphics] generates a file named file which contains the graphics object graphics in the format accepted by math2oogl.

You can transfer that file to a computer that has Geomview installed on it and then use the programs math2oogl, oogl2rib, and geomview directly from the shell. These programs are distributed in the bin/<CPU> subdirectory of the Geomview directory, and may have been installed so that they are on your path.

     In[1]:= <<OOGL.m
     
     In[2]:= Plot3D[ Sin[x + Sin[y]], {x,-2,2}, {y,-2,2} ]
     
     Out[2]= -SurfaceGraphics-
     
     In[3]:= WriteChunk["mychunk",%2]

This writes the file mychunk which contains a description of the graphics object. You can then transfer this file to a system with Geomview and type

     math2oogl < mychunk > mma.oogl

to convert it to the OOGL file mma.oogl which you can then view using Geomview. This is the equivalent of the WriteOOGL command.

For a result equivalent to the Geomview or Show commands, type

     math2oogl -togeomview Mathematica geomview < mychunk

The WriteRIb command can be emulated from the shell as

     math2oogl < mychunk | oogl2rib -n mma.tiff