R help - Aug 2008 - rgl/compiz problem

I have just encountered the problem with rgl where plot3d figures
don't interact with the mouse. My plots zoom in and out with the mouse
wheel but the mouse buttons do nothing. I can't rotate the plot.

This has been mentioned and discussed here and in other lists before,
and the solution is to turn off Ubuntu's fancy graphics.  Back in
March, Ben Bolker said:

"""
unfortunately rgl and compiz/etc. both try to use
the same OpenGL interface, so you can't use both at
the same time.
"""

This has echoes of when TCP/IP was in its infancy back in the days of
DOS, and only one program could access the network interface at a time
(until TCP/IP software got its act together). Is OpenGL really in the
same position now? Or is Compiz being "greedy" in some sense? Surely
two OpenGL applications can run at the same time? Or is it because rgl
is running 'within' another OpenGL window already, so there's some
nesting problem going on?

 Google Earth works fine, and I think that uses OpenGL. Anyone had any
ideas since March?

I'm on Ubuntu 8.04 and R 2.7.1

Barry

Two days ago I installed compiz on my Debian laptop. It plays fine with the
OpenGL games that I also have on that computer. (My son plays the games in the
brief interludes between my intense R hacking sessions. I, of course, have no
time for such frivolity. The production cycle is sleep -> eat -> R ->
eat -> R -> eat -> sleep.) I can rotate and zoom using the touchpad,
when both rgl and compiz are running.

Not sure if any of this is of help,

Simon.

Simon Blomberg, BSc (Hons), PhD, MAppStat. 
Lecturer and Consulta->nt Statistician 
Faculty of Biological and Chemical Sciences 
The University of Queensland 
St. Lucia Queensland 4072 
Australia 
T: +61 7 3365 2506 
email: S.Blomberg1_at_uq.edu.au
http://www.uq.edu.au/~uqsblomb/

Policies:
1.  I will NOT analyse your data for you.
2.  Your deadline is your problem.

The combination of some data and an aching desire for 
an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can 
be extracted from a given body of data. - John Tukey.



-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces@r-project.org on behalf of Barry Rowlingson
Sent: Wed 13/08/2008 9:45 PM
To: r-help@r-project.org
Subject: [R] rgl/compiz problem
 
I have just encountered the problem with rgl where plot3d figures
don't interact with the mouse. My plots zoom in and out with the mouse
wheel but the mouse buttons do nothing. I can't rotate the plot.

This has been mentioned and discussed here and in other lists before,
and the solution is to turn off Ubuntu's fancy graphics.  Back in
March, Ben Bolker said:

"""
unfortunately rgl and compiz/etc. both try to use
the same OpenGL interface, so you can't use both at
the same time.
"""

This has echoes of when TCP/IP was in its infancy back in the days of
DOS, and only one program could access the network interface at a time
(until TCP/IP software got its act together). Is OpenGL really in the
same position now? Or is Compiz being "greedy" in some sense? Surely
two OpenGL applications can run at the same time? Or is it because rgl
is running 'within' another OpenGL window already, so there's some
nesting problem going on?

 Google Earth works fine, and I think that uses OpenGL. Anyone had any
ideas since March?

I'm on Ubuntu 8.04 and R 2.7.1

Barry

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Barry Rowlingson <b.rowlingson <at> lancaster.ac.uk> writes:
> 
> I have just encountered the problem with rgl where plot3d figures
> don't interact with the mouse. My plots zoom in and out with the mouse
> wheel but the mouse buttons do nothing. I can't rotate the plot.
> 
> This has been mentioned and discussed here and in other lists before,
> and the solution is to turn off Ubuntu's fancy graphics.  Back in
> March, Ben Bolker said:
> 
> """
> unfortunately rgl and compiz/etc. both try to use
> the same OpenGL interface, so you can't use both at
> the same time.
> """
> 
> This has echoes of when TCP/IP was in its infancy back in the days of
> DOS, and only one program could access the network interface at a time
> (until TCP/IP software got its act together). Is OpenGL really in the
> same position now? Or is Compiz being "greedy" in some sense?
Surely
> two OpenGL applications can run at the same time? Or is it because rgl
> is running 'within' another OpenGL window already, so there's
some
> nesting problem going on?
> 
>  Google Earth works fine, and I think that uses OpenGL. Anyone had any
> ideas since March?
> 
> I'm on Ubuntu 8.04 and R 2.7.1
> 
> Barry
  Unfortunately, an apparently knowledgeable compiz person
said:

This is a limitation of DRI, DRI2 should fix this, and should hopefully be in
most drivers by Xorg 7.5(maybe 7.6), nvidia has there on implementation,
that's
why it works on it

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?t=8462

  And poking around,

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjYzNw

"sometime in 2009" is the closest I could get to finding
an expected date when this would be available ...

  Ben Bolker

Barry Rowlingson wrote:
> I have just encountered the problem with rgl where plot3d figures
> don't interact with the mouse. My plots zoom in and out with the mouse
> wheel but the mouse buttons do nothing. I can't rotate the plot.
>
> This has been mentioned and discussed here and in other lists before,
> and the solution is to turn off Ubuntu's fancy graphics.  Back in
> March, Ben Bolker said:
>
> """
> unfortunately rgl and compiz/etc. both try to use
> the same OpenGL interface, so you can't use both at
> the same time.
> """
>
> This has echoes of when TCP/IP was in its infancy back in the days of
> DOS, and only one program could access the network interface at a time
> (until TCP/IP software got its act together). Is OpenGL really in the
> same position now? Or is Compiz being "greedy" in some sense?
Surely
> two OpenGL applications can run at the same time? Or is it because rgl
> is running 'within' another OpenGL window already, so there's
some
> nesting problem going on?
>   
I think it's an Ubuntu bug, because nothing like it occurs anywhere 
else.  So I'd suggest you turn off compiz or switch to a reliable OS 
like Windows ;-).

Duncan Murdoch
>  Google Earth works fine, and I think that uses OpenGL. Anyone had any
> ideas since March?
>
> I'm on Ubuntu 8.04 and R 2.7.1
>
> Barry
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide
http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>