Magic Version 6.5.2

• magic-6.5.2.tar.gz (3.24MB) last update: 3/28/00

Magic 7.1 and the Magic home page

Magic 7.1 is documented briefly on my own Magic version 7.1 webpage. The main source for magic 7.1 or the current version is at the official magic home page.

OpenGL Graphics Interface

Warning: You will need hardware-accelerated 3D graphics support for OpenGL to make reasonable use of this program. This should be readily available on all SGI platforms; check for compatibility with other systems.

Currently, Linux requires an OpenGL-compliant video card and the Xi Graphics, Inc., 3D Accelerated-X server (see http://www.xig.com). Other OpenGL-capable X-servers are available from MetroLink, Precision Insight, SuSE, and RedHat. The XFree86 server, beginning with version 4.0, supports OpenGL and also 8-bit color overlays. The overlay visual is the best way to use the X11 version in an otherwise-24-bit graphics environment.

Note that most X servers which have OpenGL support will provide it whether you have the accelerated hardware or not. Functions which do not have hardware support will be emulated in software. Running magic with OpenGL graphics using software-emulated color blending is an exercise in futility.

Graphics cards typically need 32MB of video RAM to fully implement OpenGL in the kind of resolution (1280 x 1024 or more) that you would want to have in order to do VLSI layout (here's a hint: Don't do VLSI layout on anything smaller than a 19" monitor).

For comparison:

1. Magic using X11 (magic -d X11) (82KB GIF image)
2. Magic using OpenGL (magic -d OGL) (185KB GIF image)

• magic -d OGL when compiled for both OpenGL and X11
  
• magic when compiled for OpenGL only.
  
  

Also new in Version 6.5.2

New features:

• Better handling of keys in X11 for defining macros on function keys and other non-ASCII keys.
• Command-line history editing using the "readline" package. This uses "emacs"-style functions. For instance, use Ctrl-A and Ctrl-E to move to the beginning or end of the command line; use Ctrl-P and Ctrl-N to scroll through the command line history.
• Better handling of filenames in the command line:
  • multiple filenames allowed
  • ".mag" extension not required
• Magic thoughtfully checks whether there is exactly one window on the display (the usual situation) and avoids those annoying directives to "Put the cursor in a layout window" when there is no ambiguity about the matter.

New commands (by Philippe Pouliquen, JHU-ECE):

• imacro: like macro, but doesn't add a newline to the end, so the macro expansion is added to the current line, rather than executed.
• select visible: select only those layers which are currently visible.
• box: now reports box area as well as length and width
• down: set selected cell as new load cell
• child: report children of selected cell
• parent: report parent of selected cell
• list: list child cells
• listall: list all cells
• listtop: list top-level cells
• shell: execute a UNIX shell command
• xload: like load, but ensure that all cells are unexpanded.

Known bugs in the OpenGL interface:

• Box outlines are one pixel wider and deeper than they should be. This problem has been mostly corrected in version 7.1; however, there remain some minor problems with round-off errors, due to the difference between the way OpenGL and X11 count pixels for rectangle boundaries and fills.
• Select box outline is only 1 pixel wide and difficult to see. This behavior has been corrected in magic version 7.1.
• Multiple windows don't work. This is corrected in version 7.2.

Known bugs in 6.5.2 extensions:

• The readline interface (selectable at compile time) my be causing malloc-related errors. This doesn't show up on my Linux system unless the optimization compile flag is used; however, if magic segmentation faults on you, recompile without this option. This problem has been fixed in version 7.0 and 7.1.

For your information:

email:

Last updated: April 4, 2006 at 3:12pm