geomview 1.1

To answer one of your questions:

>Is there anyway to normalize a group of objects the same way, or perhaps
>in a collection of objects, have all objects normalized the same way as
>the first object loaded?  Currently, we have three objects - each color
>coded.  We are not using any normalization because we want two of them
>imposed upon the other.  The problem that occurs with this approach is
>that it makes it extremely difficult to rotate the three objects
>together to get the perspective we need.

Do you want to make a single combined object out of the three separate
objects you have right now? It would solve the normalization and
rotation problems referred to above.  However, once you make a
combined object you lose the ability to interactively manipulate the
sub-parts. Often this is not desirable, but your message sounded like
perhaps this would be preferable for you. 

There are two hierarchical file types, LIST and INST. A LIST is just a
collection of other objects; i.e. if you have files foo.quad,
bar.mesh, and bat.vect, you can combine them in the file all.list as
follows:

{ LIST
{ < foo.quad }
{ < bar.quad }
{ < bat.mesh }
}

If you want to specify positions for each of your separate objects,
you can make them into INST and then make a LIST from the three INSTs.
Here's an example where foo.quad and bar.quad are superimposed.

{ LIST
{ INST 	unit < foo.quad 
	transform 1 0 0 0
		  0 1 0 0
		  0 0 1 0
		  2 0 0 1
}
{ INST 	unit < bar.quad 
	transform 1 0 0 0
		  0 1 0 0
		  0 0 1 0
		  2 0 0 1
}
{ INST 	unit < bat.mesh
	transform 1 0 0 0
		  0 1 0 0
		  0 0 1 0
		  0 0 2 1
}
}