Certain behaviours are quite easy to implement on true solid models, collision
detection being one of them. Boolean operations, calculation of mass properties (e.g.,
volume and weight), surface area, etc. are others. Java3D, as far as I can tell,
supports representation of surfaces made up of polygons. You can create a polygonal
surface that looks like a solid, but it is not easy to guarantee that the surface is
closed (enclosing a well-defined 3D sub-space), that it does not self-intersect, etc.
Without these properties of true solids, a lot of the behaviours that we normally
associate with solids are difficult to implement. One can approximate many of these
operations, and they would work in most situations, but the solutions are not exact,
and would fail in more demading situations.
Our group at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University has developed a Java library SML
(solid modeling library) for creating solid primitives (polyhedra), performing Boolean
operations, on them, etc., and we have used the library to develop a number of
applet-based ssytems. We are now trying to integrate SML with Java3D to take
advantage of the rendering capabilities in Java3D.
I hope the information is useful for you.
--- Stephen Chan, Hong Kong Polytechnic University
>>> "Jack E. Rumskas" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/24 5:40 AM >>>
Are solid objects usually implemented with Collision Detection an or
Behaviors? If someone knows a better way, please let me know.
Thanks,
Jack Rumskas
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