Embedding a 3D figure into a PDF
November 9, 2009
How do you share a 3D diagram? Acrobat! It turns out that the ubiquitous Acrobat Reader contains a 3D engine that works great for distributing interactive 3D figures.
Setting bash variables from an XML file
November 8, 2009
Here’s a quick way to set bash variables using data from an XML file
A side view of cells with Galena
September 22, 2009
Putting small, cubic, crystals of galena on the surface of a culture dish provides flat surfaces that are ideal for good side-views of attached cells for light microscopy.
Valap brush
September 21, 2009
I made a valap brush—essentially a modified soldering iron, with a metal brush at the end. It heats up just enough to melt the valap—so you dip it into solid valap, which it melts, then you paint the liquid valap on at leisure.
Installing VTK on Mac OS X
September 6, 2009
Download Universal Binaries of the VTK libraries for OS X here (also how to build them yourself). The comet program uses VTK for all its 3D rendering—if you want to compile comet with 3D output, you’ll need to link against the VTK libraries.
Building GSL as a Universal Binary
September 5, 2009
Here’s a universal binary of the Gnu Scientific library (GSL) for OS X, including the ppc, ppc64, i386 and x86_64 architectures. Works with Leopard and Snow Leopard.