TetGen on IRIX
==============

Not everyone needs tetrahedra generator but some of us probably do need them.

There is the NetGen [1] but it is hard (read: impossible) to compile it on the
IRIX and even on supported platforms it is not the best example of a stable and
reliable application. There are also commercial applications like the GiD but
they are quite expensive (I have had a demo of the GiD on my SGI Indy and it is
surely capable but also slow and complicated software).

Thus one needs some alternatives - one of them is the TetGen (it's free for
research and non-commercial uses, which is enough for me) [2]. It's an academic
software and it's pretty bare (a command line application with optional and
rudimentary viewer).

I have had this piece of software on my O2 for a long time. Sometimes I even
used it (it's output can be read into my uFEM software [3] with some care).
When I recently cleaned up my Indy, I have found some of my older notes and I
decided to try the TetGen on the Indy (I never did that in the past, for
reasons that I don't remember). It's written in the C++ which I actively
dislike but which can be compiled by the ancient g++ v3.3. There was necessary
to remove the "#include <stdint.h>" from the tetgen.h file and after that (and
after some time of hard computer's work) the TetGen binary was created. And it
works perfectly! I'm not so brave, however, to compile the TetView viewer (an
IRIX binary exists but not for my R4k processor, it requires at least R5000).

After the GNU Octave binary for IRIX 5.3 and up was found some time ago it
looks like I will be able to return the Indy to the full service... ;-)

BTW, now I'm using the Indy to write this post.. A lot of stuff is running (the
XMMS to listen the ORF Radio Wien, a handful of terminals, the BRL-CAD, one or
two uFEMs, the Netscape 7.79, the GQView, the XFig, the File Manager and the
Help application ... the TetGen run was finished before some time) and the
machine is still responsible (70 MB from 256 MB of the RAM is still free for
some reason...)..


And it also seems that the Netscape (it's the Netscape Communicator 4.79)
supports the UTF-8. I have turned the CSS support off as it often causes crash
of this old browser. Also the CSS support is rather limited and thus useless.


References:
[1] http://netgen.sf.net
[2] http://wias-berlin.de/software/tetgen/tetgen143.html
[3] https://github.com/jurabr/ufem

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