RIMS release - requirements and short instructions

 author: Tony Bernardin	        date: 03/30/2006
 updated: Eric Cowgill		date: 10/30/2006

 copyright (c) 2006, Tony Bernarding and Eric Cowgill.

This readme provides essential information needed to run RIMS in either demo or release mode.

Contents:

1. Important Overview
2. Minimal System Requirements
3. Installation
4. Removal
5. License, Distribution, Bug-reporting, and Suggestions.

If you publish results obtained using RIMS, please cite the G-Cubed paper that is associated with this software release: “Bernardin, T., E. Cowgill, R. Gold, B. Hamann, O. Kreylos, and A. Schmitt, 2006, Interactive mapping on 3-D terrain models: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 7, Q10013, doi:10.1029/2006GC001335.”

RIMS is a proof-of-concept research application. While it isn't as polished as a commercial package, we have found it quite useful.If you have trouble running RIMS, find bugs, or have suggestions, please submit that information through the KeckCAVES Wiki found at http://www.keckcaves.org and not to the authors directly. The Wiki will allow us to both track and effectively respond to this important information.

RIMS only runs in Windows (specifications below). Mac/Linux versions are under development.

Two modes of RIMS are available:

• DEMO: Executable automatically loads preprocessed data (a DEM and image) provided with the demo. Fastest way to play with RIMS, but doesn't allow you to load your own data.
• RELEASE: Runs from the command line and requires you to load your own DEM and image (texture) data that have been prepared using a separate image processing application and then preprocessed using Quadbuild.exe.

Three barebones manuals are available:

• Quadbuild Manual: lists requirements for input files and provides instructions for running the quadbuild tool to preprocess DEM and image data to create RIMS input files.
• RIMS Manual: directions for launching and running both DEMO and RELEASE versions of RIMS.
• Troubleshooting: Some tips on troubleshooting Quadbuild and RIMS.

The current demo/release versions of RIMS require at least the following capabilities for the host system:

• 32bit Microsoft Windows 200x or XP (may also run on older Microsoft Windows operating systems but we have not checked this)
• The demo will *use* 512MB of main system memory (RAM) and 50MB of dedicated graphics memory (VRAM).
• The following OpenGL Extensions *must* be supported by your graphics system: GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object

If these requirements are not met, RIMS may fail to launch or operate with severely degraded performance.

Installation of both the demo and release versions of RIMS on your windows system is fairly simple. Please follow these steps:

1) Save the ZIP-compressed archive (DEMOv###.zip and/or RELEASEv###.zip).
2) Save the relevant manuals:  

DEMO manual files:

• license.txt
• RIMS Manual.doc
• Troubleshooting Manual.doc (not strictly needed but may be helpful).

RELEASE manual files:

• license.txt
• Quadbuild Manual v##.doc
• RIMS Manual v##.doc
• Troubleshooting Manual v##.doc

3) Use your favorite archiving tool to unpack the files contained in the bundle to a 
   folder of your choosing.  To run the DEMO, please make sure that the following files
   are all present in the same folder:

RIMS core files:

• rims_demo.exe
• coin2.dll
• libmmd.dll
• pthread.dll
• simage1.dll
• sowin1.dll

RIMS data files:

• surface.qdh
• surface.qdb
• texture.qdh
• texture.qdb

To run the demo please double click on rims_demo.exe. RIMS will start and automatically load the example data provided with the demo.

For instructions on how to use RIMS and/or start the release version please refer to the RIMS Manual.

To remove either the demo or release versions of RIMS from your system, simply delete the installation folder and all of its contents.

RIMS is a terrain mapping software tool that allows users to look at high-resolution terrain data interactively in 3D and to draw maps directly on the 3D model.

Copyright (C) 2006 Tony Bernardin

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

We would like to stress here again that RIMS is a prototype of ongoing research work at the University of California, Davis. As such users should expect to encounter some problems during use. We hope users will still find it to be as useful to them as it has been to us.

RIMS is distributed as is and we do not offer support as for commercial packages. Please do NOT mail the authors directly with support requests or problem reports.

However, your feedback is very important to us for the future development of RIMS. Please report bugs, workarounds, and development requests through the Wiki that can be found on the KeckCAVES website at www.keckCAVES.org

We hope this Wiki can become a portal for the RIMS community and developers to communicate on issues, leave general feedback and potentially maintain a whishlist of yet unsupported features.