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restore 2013 April fool's joke - crossing fingers about the syntax
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| --- | ||
| layout: post | ||
| title: "About the New CGAL Logo" | ||
| description: "Problem and solution." | ||
| category: "news" | ||
| tags: [] | ||
| --- | ||
| {% include JB/setup %} | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/quad-seagull.png"> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| April 1st, 2013 | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| Changing a logo is a big decision, source of controversies | ||
| and only in the long run we will see if we made a good choice. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| As the CGAL Project is an Open Source project, we like transparency | ||
| and that's why we decided to present you how it came to the new | ||
| logo, and what alternatives we explored. At the end you will see | ||
| that the choice we made was simply natural. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| As an Open Source project we also would appreciate to get user feeback, | ||
| as the only people who count for us are you, the users. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <h4>The Problem with the Old Logo</h4> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| The old CGAL logo used letters constructed with compass and rulers, | ||
| as described in the book written by | ||
| <a href="http://www.goines.net/">David Lance Goines</a>: | ||
| <i>A Constructed Roman Alphabet: a Geometric Analysis | ||
| of the Greek and Roman Capitals and of the Arabic Numerals.</i> | ||
| David R. Gordine, Boston, 1982. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| «<em> | ||
| Construct first a square ABCD, and bisect AC at E, BD at F, AB at G, and CD | ||
| at H. Draw the straight lines EF and GH, thereby establishing a point I at | ||
| their intersection. From the center I, describe a circle JIK on EF, the diameter | ||
| of which is one-ninth the distance AB. Using that same radius, describe | ||
| a circle LJI, thereby establishing a point N on the perimeter of the | ||
| circle I. ....... </em>» | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/c.png"> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| Although CGAL developers | ||
| liked these constructions a lot, the CGAL Editorial Board had to make a drastic change. An | ||
| opinion poll performed among decision makers in the computer graphics industry during Siggraph 2012 showed | ||
| that the CGAL project started to be perceived as old fashioned. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <h4>Idea</h4> | ||
| <p> | ||
| Several desperate brain storming sessions later, the breakthrough idea came by coincidence, | ||
| when we met Madeleine Ouette, the cover designer at O'Reilly, in order to choose the | ||
| animal for the upcoming CGAL book. For Madeleine a | ||
| <a target="webster" href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/seagull"><em>seagull</em></a> | ||
| was the most natural choice as the word is a | ||
| <a target="webster" href="https://media.merriam-webster.com/audio/prons/en/us/mp3/s/seagul01.mp3">homophone</a> | ||
| for <em>CGAL</em>, and we were lucky that it was not already taken. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| A quick word on the book: It is about CGAL 5.0 which will be released in September 2013. | ||
| The change of the major release number is due to the fact, that we fully exploit the | ||
| features of C++11, that is lamdas, the auto type, variadic templates, decltype, etc. | ||
| This will lead to some compilers no longer being supported, and some CGAL users having to | ||
| revise their C++ language skills (hence the book), but it leads to a phenomenal clarity | ||
| and elegance of the CGAL APIs. We simply had to do it. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/book.png"> | ||
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| <h4>A Drawing is Not a Logo</h4> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| Having the seagull on the CGAL book, and the fact that this bird is elegant and dynamic, | ||
| led to the decision to come up with a "seagull" logo. We were tempted to simply take the | ||
| drawing of the O'Reilly CGAL book, but this was impossible because O'Reilly considers | ||
| these drawings as part of their brand. The next idea was to find a cool picture of | ||
| a seagull flying through a stormy sky. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/seagull.png"> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| Luckily we contacted an expert in logos and brand development. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| «<em>A logo is an abstraction</em>» explained Mark Höwe, Chief Creative of | ||
| the web agency Haatchi&Haatchi, and he illustrated what he meant | ||
| with the images on the right. | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/painted-seagull.png"> | ||
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| «<em>CGAL is not a zoo, right!</em>» Mark said, and he continued | ||
| «<em>Was CGAL an application like Picasa, inkscape, or gimp, a painting would | ||
| have been a serious option.</em>» | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| Here we are in 3D. | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/quad-seagull.png"></center></td> | ||
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| We see quad meshes flying rapidly over a terrain model. | ||
| Additionally, we see the mesh at two levels of detail. | ||
| «<em>In a world of devices ranging from smartphones, over tablets, | ||
| to workstations with huge screens, multi resolution algorithms are key!</em>» | ||
| according to Mark, and he added «<em>As Samsung Maps and Huawei Maps also enter | ||
| the market of GIS for the masses, a logo with a terrain model, makes | ||
| absolute sense for a geometry library like CGAL.»</em> | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| If CGAL was only 2D algorithms this tangram would have worked too. | ||
| «<em>The fact that it is composed of basic shapes which can be recombined | ||
| in an unlimited number of ways captures the essence of CGAL.</em>» Mark said. </td> | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/tangram-seagull.png"> | ||
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| <p> | ||
| The outline is easy to recognize, but because it can be seen on many | ||
| windows to avoid real birds hitting the window, it is almost impossible | ||
| to establish a new connotation between the shape and the geometry | ||
| library. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <IMG src="../../../../../April13/img/outline-seagull.png"> | ||
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