[pstricks] Which package defines parametricplotThreeD?

[Michael Sharpe]

On Jul 8, 2010, at 5:57 PM, Zbigniew Nitecki wrote:

> 
> On Jul 8, 2010, at 17:12, Michael Sharpe wrote:
> 
>>  It might be time to upgrade your pstricks packages.
> I must admit that I have become rusty about the mechanics of downloading and installing a pstricks update.
> I looked at the pstricks homepage, and went to the UK group FAQ, and learned a little about TDS.
> But I'm still not clear exactly what I should do to update my pstricks.  Is there some documentation with
> step-by-step instructions for a computer idiot like me, who uses gui most of the time and is afraid of the console?
> And also, is there a bundled package (I think there used to be) that can download and install most of what I need?
> I went and downloaded from CTAN a pstricks file which when it unzipped gave me a folder called "base":
> it looks like maybe just the barebones stuff necessary for pstricks, unadorned.  The contents seem to differ a bit
> from the list of subdirectories in the texmf file in my user library.
>> 
>> 2. Use keywords Alpha and Beta to set the viewpoint for objects defined in pst-3Dplot.
> Sure, I can do that (and even know how to), but would like to understand in what context the viewpoint setting works.
> Or is it now obsolete?
>> 
>> Michael

If you are using MacTeX 2009, you *may* be able to do one more upgrade using TeX Live utility, a front end to tlmgr, even though the upgrade deadline is past. That would be the easiest, if it worked. If you don't have MacTeX 2009, then it's a large download (1.2GB) from http://www.tug.org/mactex/2009/, but the installation is just about completely automatic. To get the latest pstricks packages, you could download the compressed TDS from http://archiv.dante.de/~herbert/---you want PSTricks-TDS.tgz. Double-click on it to decompress it to a folder named PSTricks-TDS in your Downloads folder. Assuming this is ~/Downloads/PSTricks-TDS, you would start Terminal and type

cd ~/Downloads/PSTricks-TDS<return>
mkdir -p ~/.texlive2009/texmf-var<return>
cp -R * ~/.texlive2009/texmf-var<return>

This copies the entire contents of PSTricks-TDS into your hidden personal texmf tree. I suggest doing it this way rather than into the system texmf trees because MacTeX 2010 will be with us shortly, and you can (must) easily dispose of the entire hidden tree after installing MacTeX 2010 with 

rm -rf ~/.texlive2009/texmf-var

so that it does not interfere with the new installation. (It will be re-created automatically.)

As far as I know, viewpoint is a keyword used only by the package pst-3d, and appears to be ignored by macros in pst-3dplot. 

Michael