RGL - 3D visualization device system for R using OpenGL
INTRODUCTION
The RGL package is a visualization device system for R, using OpenGL or WebGL as the rendering backend. An OpenGL rgl device at its core is a real-time 3D engine written in C++. It provides an interactive viewpoint navigation facility (mouse + wheel support) and an R programming interface. WebGL, on the other hand, is rendered in a web browser; rgl produces the input file, and the browser shows the images.
LICENSE
The software is released under the GNU Public License. See “COPYING” for details.
FEATURES
- portable R package using OpenGL (if available) on macOS, Win32 and X11
- can produce 3D graphics in web pages using WebGL
- R programming interface
- interactive viewpoint navigation
- automatic data focus
- geometry primitives: points, lines, triangles, quads, texts, point sprites
- high-level geometry: surface, spheres
- up to 8 light sources
- alpha-blending (transparency)
- side-dependent fill-mode rendering (dots, wired and filled)
- texture-mapping with mipmapping and environment mapping support
- environmental effects: fogging, background sphere
- bounding box with axis ticks marks
- undo operation: shapes and light-sources are managed on type stacks, where the top-most objects can be popped, or any item specified by an identifier can be removed
PLATFORMS
macOS Windows 7/10 Unix-derivatives
BUILD TOOLS
R recommended tools (gcc toolchain) On Windows, Rtools40 (or earlier versions for pre-R-4.0.0)
REQUIREMENTS
For OpenGL display:
Windowing System (unix/x11 or win32) OpenGL Library OpenGL Utility Library (GLU)
For WebGL display:
Browser with WebGL enabled.
Installation on Debian:
To install OpenGL support:
aptitude install libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev
OPTIONS
libpng library version 1.2.9 or newer (pixmap import/export support) freetype library (optional on Unix for resizable anti-aliased fonts), required on Windows
BUILDING/INSTALLING FROM SOURCE PACKAGE
The R build tool is the primary tool to build the RGL package.
BUILDING ON MICROSOFT WINDOWS
Install Rtools40 or newer.
An Internet connection will be needed, as FreeType is automatically downloaded from https://github.com/rwinlib.
BUILDING ON UNIX-STYLE OS (macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, … )
The build is controlled by an autoconf configure script. You provide the options through the R CMD build/INSTALL command
e.g. $ R CMD INSTALL –configure-args=“<configure args…>” rgl
COMMON UNIX-STYLE OS OPTIONS —————————-
–with-gl-includes= GL C header files include path
–with-gl-libraries= GL library linkage path
–with-gl-prefix= GL library prefix (e.g. Mesa)
–disable-libpng disable libpng support
–with-libpng-prefix= force LibPNG library install prefix (e.g. /usr/local)
–disable-libpng-config explicitly disable libpng-config
–disable-libpng-dynamic use static libpng library
–disable-opengl disable all OpenGL displays; WebGL is still available
You may find that your distro doesn’t have all necessary development libraries installed: read the error messages for hints! This line has been reported to be sufficient on FC 5 or 6:
yum install mesa-libGL-devel mesa-libGLU-devel libpng-devel
X11 WINDOWING SYSTEM OPTIONS —————————-
The X11 windowing system is needed for OpenGL display in macOS and Unix-alikes.
–x-includes= X11 C header files include path
–x-libraries= X11 library linkage path
BUILDING WITHOUT OPENGL ———————–
As of version 0.104.1, it is possible to build the package without OpenGL support on Unix-alikes (including macOS) with the configure option –disable-opengl For example,
R CMD INSTALL –configure-args=“–disable-opengl” rgl_0.104.1.tar.gz
On Windows, OpenGL support cannot currently be disabled.
DEMOS: LOADING AND RUNNING DEMONSTRATIONS
library(rgl)
demo(rgl)CREDITS
Daniel Adler dadler@uni-goettingen.de
Duncan Murdoch murdoch@stats.uwo.ca
Oleg Nenadic onenadi@uni-goettingen.de
Simon Urbanek simon.urbanek@math.uni-augsburg.de
Ming Chen mchen34@uwo.ca
Albrecht Gebhardt albrecht.gebhardt@uni-klu.ac.at
Ben Bolker bolker@zoo.ufl.edu
Gabor Csardi csardi@rmki.kfki.hu
Adam Strzelecki ono@java.pl
Alexander Senger senger@physik.hu-berlin.de
The R Core Team for some code from R.
Dirk Eddelbuettel edd@debian.org
The authors of Shiny for their private RNG code.
Jeroen Ooms for Rtools40 and FreeType help.
Yohann Demont for Shiny code, suggestions, and testing.
Joshua Ulrich for a lot of help with the Github migration.