Carolyn,
Welcome to the wonderful world of Java 3D! I'll have a shot at answering
your questions:
I think what you are trying to do can be handled by an appropriate scene
graph. For example:
ROOT
| |
----- --------
| |
| Map Branch
Labels Switch
|
Labels TG
| |
Label 1 Label N
TG TG
| |
BG BG
(I hope this arrives intact)
Labels Switch: use this Switch Node to control the visibility if the labels
Labels TG: use this TransformGroup Node to move *all* the labels relative to
the map
Label 1/N TG: use these TransformGroup Nodes to move individual labels
Label BG: use this BranchGroup Node to contain the geometry (Shape3D) for
each label
The important point to note is that a transform applied to the Labels TG
will be automatically applied to all of the child nodes of the Labels TG
(recursively, down the scene graph). This makes the scene graph a very
convenient data structure for doing the kind of positioning that you
describe.
Your choices for label geometry are either Text2D or Text3D nodes. If you
plan on having many labels then Text2D is probably the only realistic
option.
I would recommend you check out some of the Java 3D tutorials around (see
the earlier Java 3D book thread for a list). We also have some sample code
on our site at:
http://www.tornadolabs.com/News/news.html
Best of luck!
Daniel Selman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tornado Labs Ltd.
http://www.tornadolabs.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for Java 3D API
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of cgerrard
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 3:43 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Is it possible to associate a property from one node to another
Hi,
I've just started working in Java3D and I wonder if anyone can answer any
of these questions.
Firstly can you link a property from one node to another, for example
it would be nice to set a relationship between one transform group and
another so if the transform changes the second one will become adjusted
by the same difference.
How do you cope with a situation where you want to add a transform group
to a switch that controls the visibility of objects of that type but
you also need to add the transform group to another transform group to
handle
positioning.
The scenario is that I have a map showing nodes each of which has
a label. I can position the label by adding it to the TG of the parent node
but this means I can't added to a global branch label switch so that
I can turn all node labels on and off.
What is the best way to show text on the map? I had hoped I'd
be able to use Swing but of course I found out the hard way that
Canvas3D extends Canvas so all Swing components get hidden by the
platform level painting in the Canvas3D object.
Thanks in advance for any help you can give. The lack of detailed
technical info available for Java3D at present is giving me quite some
problems as a newcomer.
Cheers
Carolyn Gerrard
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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