I sometimes need to view STL files, but the only programs I found that could do this were both Windows-based and non-free.
When I saw Perry Newhook series on EDM/2 that ended up in building a Quake-model viewer I had the idea: I already had some code for STL manipulation, I asked him if I could "borrow" his interface and glued the two together.
The result is a very rudimentary app which can be invoked with "STLView filename", by dragging an STL file over its icon, or associating the former with the latter, or by whatever other means you like; only remember: there is no file open dialog (I always though they were pretty useless anyway), so you have to specify a filename on the command line.
Feedback of whatever nature (bug-reports, comments, curses... ) is very welcome.
Capabilities
_ Can read both binary and text STL files.
_ Can display using wireframe, point-only or flat shading.
_ Can zoom and rotate the model (while this opartion is in progress, the style changes to point-only for speed reasons).
The future
I don't pretend this to be a complete work; in fact I'm the first one to say it may be considered simply a beginning.
However I don't know if I'll be enhancing this in the future.
It depends on the amount of free time I will have (my work and university come first), on my future needs, on the amount of interest the program gets, on other software availability and so on.
I may one day decide to drop it completely or pass it to someone else; also, if anyone thinks he may contribute some part or enhance some features, please get in touch with me.
Right now the program is based on GLUT, so it should be possible to simply recompile it for X-window (I may do this if someone is interested) or for other operating system.
However, I think the app should move away from GLUT if it is to have a nice user-interfacw, and be rewritten using a cross-platform GUI library such as YACL, wxWindows, V, ...
Also, a great speed improvement could be obtained by using simplification algorythms on the model. That is, in the absence of hardware accelerated OpenGL. If you own a 3D card (especially if it's a Matrox, like mine :-), you could do some good by asking 3d drivers to be released.
