SketchUp Engine

Jim

If you've ever started SketchUp with a debugger, you have no doubt seen this message:

Intrinsic Alchemy v3.3 Beta-0702 (Dynamic/Release)

Intrinsic Alchemy is apparently a 3D game library used by game developers. We of course have no idea how it's used in SketchUp, but a quick googling shows it is a full-featured library with a lot awesome features. Maybe someday?

http://devmaster.net/devdb/engines/intrinsic-alchemy

thomthom

That's interesting. Never thought of following up on the name that appeared. hmm...

Pixero

Indeed very interesting. How long has it been there?

Dan Rathbun

I found this:
http://www.graphics.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=1267

But the web domain the company used to use is now for sale.

Did they go belly up ?

EDIT: supposedly they got bought out by http://www.vvisions.com/

AdamB

Yes. Alchemy tried to compete with RenderWare back in the day of PS2 - without much success.

However, a company subsequently used their engine to create a realtime globe mapping app that eventually caught the eye of Google. Google purchased the app and tech to build what was to become Google Earth.

My problem with Alchemy is the same as it was back then, which it is very heavy weight for realtime graphics where you want stuff really lean'n'mean - try sampling SketchUp sometime and gasp at the call stack depth with hundreds of methods calls.

Adam

thomthom

@adamb said:

My problem with Alchemy is the same as it was back then, which it is very heavy weight for realtime graphics where you want stuff really lean'n'mean - try sampling SketchUp sometime and gasp at the call stack depth with hundreds of methods calls.

What tools do you use for that? A debugger?

AdamB

Yes.

But on a Mac, use Activity Monitor and click "Sample" to see this.