In addition to what has already been said, it is important to
remember that a vector is a means of specifying a direction. In many
cases you may want to manipulate them mathematically (e.g., What
direction is halfway between the two thugs, left and right, that I am
trying to escape?). It is difficult to do that if the "directions" are
not consistent (What if one thug is further away than the other?). A
great many mathematical functions eliminate the distance problem by
setting the vector length to one ("normalizing" the vector) so the only
component of concern is its direction. I suggest you take a look at an
introductory book on computer graphics. The field does require a fair
understanding of math concepts and an understanding of vectors, dot
products, etc. is essential if you ever plan to program anything other
than the most basic scenes.
-Gary Graf
Jasmine Kwok wrote:
> Thanks.But how does it help in any program?I mean why would one use
> normalise() in his program, does it help in any kind of
> function? Jasmine Kwok
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Patrick-Emmanuel Boulanger-Nadeau
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 3:37 PM
> Subject: Re: [JAVA3D] Function of normalise()
> Normalising a vector is giving him the unitary lenght, by
> definition. The function simply calculate the lenght (square
> root of the sum of the square of each composant) and then
> divide every composant by it .. so the function is really
> doing what it should =)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jasmine Kwok
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 12:09 AM
> Subject: [JAVA3D] Function of normalise()
> Dear all, Does anyone has any idea what exactly
> does the normalize() in Vector3d does?How come the
> length of the vector becomes 1.0 after it is
> normalized, regardless of the values of x, y & z.I
> need some explanation on this as the API does not
> explain the method's function in details.I would
> be thankful to anyone who can provide me with a
> simple explanation on this. Cheers,Jasmine Kwok
>
===========================================================================
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".
