[Radiance-general] MacBook Pro - Apple and Intel

[Greg Ward]

Hi Kirk,

Radiance should definitely be recompiled for the Intel platform, and  
I will endeavor to supply binaries for both architectures in the next  
release.  Photosphere can be cross-compiled using Xcode 2, and I will  
be testing that just as soon as someone I know picks up one of the  
new Intel-based Apples.  (It seems very strange to use "Intel" and  
"Apple" in the same sentence without "versus" in between.)  The iMac  
is supposedly out as of today, but the Mac Book Pro isn't shipping  
until February.

The main difference from a programming standpoint between the two  
machines is that the PowerPC family is BigEndian while Intel is  
LittleEndian (different byte orders).  This can affect binary files  
that are not machine-independent.  In Radiance, this includes  
holodeck files and depth buffers (-z option of rpict).  I think  
that's it.  All the other standard file types are designed to port  
across architectures.  Photosphere uses a byte-ordering translator on  
its binary catalog file, but I haven't had the chance to actually  
test it up until now.  It will be working when I make an universal  
version available.

You can see <http://www.apple.com/rosetta/> for more information.

-Greg

P.S.  I'm kicking myself a bit for having bought a new PowerBook last  
Summer.  Hopefully, Rob Guglielmetti held off with his Christmas  
purchase.  Everyone said that the iBooks would be the first to  
switch, but apparently not.

> From: Kirk Thibault <kthibault at biomechanicsinc.com>
> Date: January 10, 2006 7:30:39 PM PST
>
> Well ... anyone actually seen one of these yet?
>
> http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
>
> Does this Mac/Intel paradigm shift make any difference to the way  
> RADIANCE and Photosphere, etc. are implemented in Mac OSX?  (sorry  
> for the Mac-specific detour here....).
>
> Pretty cool.
>
> kirk