Toby's RISC OS Software

roLathe

Information

roLathe is a lathe modeller for RISC OS 5. You draw the outline (the "cut") of an object on one side of an axis, and roLathe spins it around that axis to show the solid it would make if it were turned on a lathe.

It is inspired by uLathe for Windows 3.1, and reads and writes the .lila files of Kostas Michalopoulos's Little Lathe.

This application was written with the assistance of a Large Language Model.

Features

Cut window: draw and edit the outline on a grid. You can add, drag, insert and delete points, snap them to the grid, zoom to 200% or 400%, and type exact coordinates in the point editor.
Render window: shows the object live as you edit, as a wireframe, flat shaded (filled) or Gouraud shaded, with optional anti-aliasing. Drag to turn, tilt and zoom the view.
Toolbar: number of slices, reset view, render style, anti-aliasing and Little Lathe's floor grid.
Floor: with the floor grid on, the floor is shown in the cut window and can be dragged to raise or lower it.
Lighting window: object, light, ambient and background colours (using the ColourPicker), ambient shade, sharpness, scale and the light's direction.
Files: loads and saves Little Lathe .lila files, including the view, which is saved as Little Lathe's camera.
Export: Drawfile (cut outline, wireframe or flat shaded view), sprite and PNG (at up to four times the screen's resolution).
Printing: through the RISC OS printer drivers.
Interactive help, keyboard shortcuts, and window positions and settings saved in Choices.

Install

roLathe can be found in !PackMan, or downloaded as a zip file.

History

Version	Comments
0.01 2026-10-14	First test build: icon bar icon, menu, Info window, cut window and wireframe render window.
0.02 2026-10-16	Phase 1 complete: windows resize up to the full screen, points can be added, dragged, inserted and deleted, and Little Lathe files can be loaded, and saved from the window menu. New, and checks before discarding unsaved changes.
0.03 2026-10-16	Phases 2 to 4: turn, tilt and zoom the view; toolbar with slices, Reset view, Wireframe, Filled and Gouraud shading, and anti-aliasing. Export as Drawfile, sprite (up to four times the screen's resolution) and PNG. Printing.
0.04 2026-10-16	First release. Lighting window for the colours, shading, light direction and scale. Point editor, cut window zoom, keyboard short cuts and interactive help. Little Lathe's floor grid, which can be raised or lowered in the cut window. Files keep their view, as Little Lathe's camera. Window positions and settings are remembered. A narrower toolbar, with a pop-up menu for the style.

Acknowledgements

The .lila file format and the mesh generation come from Little Lathe; roLathe is an altered, rewritten version for RISC OS.

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose, including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be appreciated but is not required.
Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.