The goal is not to redistribute or reuse proprietary VistaPro code/assets. The local reference/ directory is intentionally ignored by git and is used only for historical/product research.

Current status

This repository currently contains:

A Rust binary crate scaffold.
A first-pass knowledgebase under docs/knowledgebase/.
An implementation roadmap under docs/plans/.
Legal and reference-material hygiene notes under docs/legal/ and docs/research/.

Development

cargo build
cargo test
cargo run -- info
cargo run -- scene export --output /tmp/openvistapro-default.ovp.toml
cargo run -- render --preset hill --width 256 --height 256 --output /tmp/openvistapro-hill.png
cargo run -- render --preset hill --scene /tmp/openvistapro-default.ovp.toml --width 256 --height 256 --output /tmp/openvistapro-hill-from-scene.png
cargo run -- render --preset hill --camera-demo --width 256 --height 192 --output /tmp/openvistapro-perspective.png

The default render mode writes a deterministic top-down elevation preview. Passing --camera-demo switches to the current CPU perspective renderer spike: a simple pinhole-camera raymarcher with bilinear height sampling, fixed step size, sky gradient, and distance haze. It is intended as a readable reference renderer for architecture validation, not a performance target or final visual model.

Scene files use the project-owned .ovp.toml format. Version 1 stores a top-level schema = "openvistapro.scene", version = 1, and a serialized Scene payload containing camera, light, water, tree-line, snow-line, and haze settings. The format is intentionally human-readable while the data model is still evolving.

Project principles

Clean-room implementation: do not decompile, copy, or translate proprietary binaries.
Use open data formats and openly licensed datasets.
Preserve the spirit/workflow of VistaPro while designing a modern UX and renderer.
Start with a small, testable terrain engine before building advanced rendering or UI.