Welcome to LODESTAR Revision 1.0!

This readme file covers some important topics in addition to describing
what is contained in this archive.

You can also visit the LODESTAR Home Page:

        http://www.cg.tuwien.ac.at/research/vr/lodestar/

1) CopyRight/Disclaimer

   LODESTAR Copyright (C) 1996 by Technical University of Vienna
                          Department of Computer Graphics
                          written by Reinhard Sainitzer & Herbert Buchegger
                          All rights reserved.

   This software may be freely copied, modified and redistributed without
   fee for non-commerical purposes provided that this copyright notice is
   preserved intact on all copies and modified copies.

   There is no warranty or other guarantee of fitness of this software.
   It is provided solely "as is". The authors disclaim all
   responsibility and liability with respect to this software's usage
   or its effect upon hardware or computer systems.

2) But Is It Free?

   Yes, for non-commercial use. No money, donations, etc are required.

   However this software is "E-Mail Ware" or "Postcard Ware" so if you use
   this software send us a E-Mail or a Postcard and tell us your opinion
   about this software.

   E-Mail:
                sainitz@cg.tuwien.ac.at
                buchegg@cg.tuwien.ac.at

   Mail:
                Reinhard Sainitzer         Buchegger Herbert
                Wirtingerstr. 21           Kraxenweg 20
                A-2324 Rannersdorf         A-3500 Krems
                Austria                    Austria


   For commercial use, a licensing agreement is required.


3) What are all these other files?

   SGI, Linux, HP and OS/2 package:

      lodestar     The binary file of LODESTAR
      README       This file.
      Usage        Description of the usage of this tool including all commandline options


   OS/2 package:

      lodestar.exe The binary file of LODESTAR
      README       This file.
      Usage        Description of the usage of this tool including all commandline options

   DOS package:

      lodestar.exe The binary file of LODESTAR
      README       This file.
      Usage        Description of the usage of this tool including all commandline options
      emx.exe      VCPI DOS extender (c) Eberhard Mattes
                   emx is available for anonymous ftp on 
                   ftp.uni-stuttgart.de: /pub/systems/os2/emx-0.9b
      rsx.exe      DPMI DOS extender (c) Rainer Schnither
                   rsx is available for anonymous ftp on 
                   ftp.uni-bielefeld.de: /pub/systems/msdos/misc
      copying.rsx  rsx copyright information


   Source-Code package:

      src.zip      The C++ source code of LODESTAR
      README       This file.
      Usage        Description of the usage of this tool including all commandline options


4) If you have a problem running the software or if you find a bug  
   you can contact us at:

                sainitz@cg.tuwien.ac.at
                buchegg@cg.tuwien.ac.at

5) Notes

   If you use a version of Lodestar for OS/2 or DOS the
   output parameter -o respectively --output must be specified !!! 
   The reason is the limited format of filenames in FAT filesystems

   In the DOS-package two DOS extenders (emx.exe for VCPI and rsx.exe for DPMI)
   are incuded. The tool uses automatically one of these extenders. You should
   copy emx.exe and rsx.exe into a directory where the tool can find it
   (a directory in the search path).

6) We hope you have a lot of fun using this software.


Herbert & Reinhard

