Thanks to everyone who replied - too many for me to address
each one individually.
My reason for writing was that in my J3D programs I find
myself repeatedly converting between degrees and radians
for input/output purposes. To me, that is a sign something
is wrong. Computers should do the repetitive work, not me.
Although some might not believe it, my maths isn't too bad.
But a programming language/API is IMHO a notation that should
be designed for convenience of expression, not necessarily
the underlying concepts.
For instance, all of the computers running Java are supposed
to be using IEEE floating point arithmetic. And the difference
between floating point representation and "real" real numbers
can be very important at times. That doesn't mean that Java
programmers should be forced to write
float PI = 0x40490FDB
instead of
float PI = 3.141593
Then there are all those unnecessary classes in J3D like
AxisAngle4 and those unnecessary methods for translating
and scaling. All you need are matrices, why would anyone
want all these special cases that obscure the underlying
beauty of the concept?
For a more pernicious example, have a look at Chapter 1 of
"Getting Started with Java 3D" (the PDF tutorial), section
1.6.1, under Transform3D. There it states that
45 deg = 0.785
90 deg = 1.57
180 deg = 3.14
Those are wrong by 0.05%. Yes, the tutorial does say that
they are aproximations, but they are *in the manual* so will
no doubt be propagated across numerous programs.
Anyway, you can all relax: the official word from the J3D
team is that it won't be changed.
Hugh Fisher
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