Hi Java 3D Folks, I've been trying to create a basic CAD like program using Java 3D.
I have tried several (4) times, but each time I come to a point where it really turns out to be crap, either in performance or in functionality. This, I am half sure, is because of my inexperience with Java 3D (although from all the attempts, I am getting to know *something* about Java 3D), and because I am attempting everything from scratch rather than trying to find utility code from other people. The other half of me thinks its because Java 3D is not the right thing to use. Anyway, would there be anyone interested in helping me out, helping me understand how to set things up, point out where to get utilities from, or just the right way to use/code Java 3D? My basic need is to have an interactive CAD-like system which has some very basic functions like 1) Click on point to get (x, y, z) coordinate, 2) Click on 2 points to determine distance, 3) Click on 3 point to determine angle, etc. No need for complex CAD functions like Boolean subtraction of intersecting objects, etc. The objects I am interested in are "simple" polyhedra, plus some other simple forms (Spirals, torii, etc.) All I want to do is to be able to change their texture, move them around, join them together (vertex to vertex, edge to edge, face to face), change size/scale, orientation, etc. The very basic stuff. The reason I am not sure Java 3D is the right tool is because it takes *so much code* to do anything.... My latest version fails because: 1) Runs out of memory for simple polyhedra... For *each* *part* of the polyhedron, I put the Shape3D under *several* transforms (spin, translate, scale, orientation). So, for a 120 triangular faced polyhedron there are 120 such sequence of transforms. In part this was so that every triangle gets drawn at the origin and then translated, spun, scaled, etc. into its final position by the 120 individual transforms. Another reason I tried it this way was so that transparency worked better. I find that when there are intersecting polyhedra, transparency does not work very good unless you split the intersecting polyhedra into parts out side (not intersecting) and parts inside (intersected parts). 2) Saving a scene (for later import back into the app) is a nightmare.... Since scene graph objects are not serializable, I wrote my own import/output functions. In short, its a mess. So many parameters to save. *And* to read back in.... 3) Interactive functions is too primitive... 4) etc.... Anyway, I am about to start again. If several people are interested, I could setup an area on my web site for development. I don't mind posting code and screen snapshots. To start, how would you folks setup and code polyhedra? Any polyhedron would have 1) Line edges 2) Cylinder edges 3) Sphere vertices 4) Plane faces all of which can be turned on/off (with a switch node), texture attributes can be changed, etc. and would need PickPoints (I would think) for selecting vertices, mid-edge points, center of faces, center of volume. Note that each element (each vertex, each edge, each face) would need its own texture so that each vertex, etc. could be a different color. Well, if anyone is interested, please let me know. Anyone have examples of this already? Any thoguhts on saving a scene graph to a file and reading it in later (with all texture attributes for all objects)?? Bob Gray =========================================================================== To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "signoff JAVA3D-INTEREST". For general help, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include in the body of the message "help".
