Table of Contents

1 What is Java 3D and is it for me? 1

1.1 Strengths 2

1.2 Weaknesses 3

1.3 System requirements (developer and end user) 5

1.4 Expected performance 6

Memory footprint 7

1.5 Running the examples 8

1.6 Summary 8

2 3D graphics programming 10

2.1 Learning 3D graphics programming 10

2.2 Projecting from 3D world coordinates to 2D screen coordinates 13

A simple 3D projection routine 13 ♦ Comparing output 15 ♦ Drawing filled triangles 16

2.3 Lighting effects 19

2.4 Putting it together?MyJava3D 21

2.5 Summary 26

3 Getting started, Hello Java 3D! 27

3.1 Installation 27

Java 2 SDK 27 ♦ Java 3D 1.2 JDK 28 ♦ Documentation 28 ♦ Java 2 development environment (optional) 30 ♦ Performance analysis tools (optional) 30 ♦ Java class decompiler (optional) 30

3.2 Your first Java 3D application 30

3.3 Exercises for the reader 37

Colors and lighting 37 ♦ Animation parameters 37 ♦ Background geometry 38 ♦ Scheduling bounds 38 ♦ Capability bits 38 ♦ The position of the viewer of the scene 38 ♦ Size of sphere primitives 38

3.4 Summary 38

4 The scenegraph 39

4.1 Overview 39

4.2 What is a scenegraph? 42

4.3 Java 3D and the scenegraph 46

4.4 Elements of scenegraph design 51

Object-oriented 51 ♦ Compilable 51 ♦ Level of detail independent 51 ♦ Polymorphic (customizable) 51 ♦ Bounds and level of detail aware 51

4.5 Scenegraph advantages 52

Object management 52 ♦ Rendering optimization 52 ♦ Picking support 52 ♦ Behavior model 52 Collision detection 52 ♦ Multiple thread aware 52 ♦ Hierarchical control 52

4.6 Hierarchical control 53

4.7 Immediate mode vs. retained mode vs. mixed mode 56

Immediate mode 57 ♦ Mixed mode 61 ♦ Summary of modes 62

4.8 Summary 64

5 Scenegraph node reference 65

5.1 Scenegraph compilation 65

Appearance merging and sorting 66 ♦ Geometry merging 66

5.2 Node 66

5.3 Bounds and CollisionBounds 67

Bounds and CollisionBounds propagation 69

5.4 Group 71

Remove a child Node by reference 72

5.5 Switch 73

5.6 BranchGroup 75

5.7 OrderedGroup 77

5.8 SharedGroup and link 78

5.9 Primitive 80

5.10 TransformGroup 80

5.11 Summary 81

6 Defining the universe 82

6.1 Locales and HiResCoord 82

6.2 View, ViewPlatform, and Locale 85

6.3 SimpleUniverse 87

Avatars and platform geometry 92

6.4 Background geometry 94

6.5 Using multiple views 95

Billboards and LOD behaviors 95

6.6 Summary 96

7 Data model design 97

7.1 Choosing a data model 97

Surface models 98 ♦ Volumetric and mathematical models 100 ♦ Implementing in Java 3D 103

7.2 Performance objectives 104

Rendering quality 105 ♦ Load time 106 ♦ Memory footprint 106 ♦ Development time and asset management 106

7.3 Summary 107

8 Geometry reference 108

8.1 Shape3D 108

The user data field 109

8.2 Primitive 109

Box 111 ♦ Cone 113 ♦ Cylinder 114 ♦ Sphere 115 ♦ Primitive flags 115 ♦ Primitives and the geometry cache 116

8.3 GeomBuffer 116

8.4 Rasters 116

Rendering an image using a Raster 117 ♦ Retrieving scene depth components using a Raster 117

8.5 Text2D 121

8.6 Text3D 122

Complex geometry 123 ♦ SetString problems 124

8.7 Morph 124

8.8 Summary 125

9 Setting geometry appearances 126

9.1 Introduction 126

9.2 Appearance 128

9.3 ColoringAttributes 129

9.4 LineAttributes 131

9.5 Material 132

9.6 PointAttributes 133

9.7 PolygonAttributes 136

9.8 RenderingAttributes 138

9.9 TexCoordGeneration 140

9.10 TextureAttributes 140

9.11 Texture 140

9.12 TransparencyAttributes 141

A warning about transparency 144

9.13 Summary 148

10 Lights 149

10.1 Lights 150

Lighting equations 151 ♦ Normal vectors and lighting 152 ♦ Lighting and material properties 154 ♦ What about shadows? 154

10.2 Light node 155

Light properties 155

10.3 AmbientLight 157

10.4 DirectionalLight 157

10.5 PointLight 157

10.6 SpotLight 158

10.7 Lighting, material attributes, and per-vertex colors 161

10.8 Summary 162

11 Behaviors?navigation, alignment, and LOD 163

11.1 Introduction 164

11.2 Behavior class 165

Scheduling bounds 165 ♦ Enable State 166 ♦ WakeUp Condition 166 ♦ processStimulus method 166 ♦ initialize method 166 ♦ When do Behaviors run? 166

11.3 Anatomy of a typical behavior 166

Constructor 167 ♦ initialize method 167 ♦ processStimulus method 167

11.4 Overview of the built-in behaviors 167

11.5 Overview of Wakeup criteria 169

WakeupCriterion 170 ♦ WakeupCondition 170 ♦ Summary 171

11.6 Using keyboard behaviors 172

KeyNavigatorBehavior 173 ♦ Writing a simple keyboard behavior 174 ♦ Implementing DOOM and DOOM-style keyboard navigation 176 ♦ Conclusions 186

11.7 Using mouse behaviors 186

Java 3D and the mouse 187 ♦ Building improved mouse behaviors 188

11.8 Billboard behavior 192

11.9 Using LOD behaviors 195

DistanceLOD Class 195

11.10 Summary 197

12 Using Interpolator behaviors 198

12.1 The Interpolator class 198

12.2 The Alpha class 199

Using a custom Alpha class 201 ♦ Summary 202

12.3 Example of Interpolator usage 203

SwitchValueInterpolator 203 ♦ ColorInterpolator 204 ♦ PositionInterpolator 204 ♦ RotationInterpolator 205 ♦ ScaleInterpolator 205 ♦ TransparencyInterpolator 205 ♦ RotPosScalePathInterpolator 205 ♦ Design of the InterpolatorTest example 208

12.4 Using a cubic-spline interpolator 210

Tension parameter 210 ♦ Continuity 211 ♦ Bias 211 ♦ The SplineInterpolatorTest example 211 ♦ Creating the LOD behavior 214 ♦ Reading spline key frames from disk 215 ♦ Creating the texture-mapped sky backdrop 218 ♦ Controlling the extent of the audio for the helicopters 218

12.5 Summary 219

13 Writing custom behaviors 220

13.1 The BehaviorTest example 220

13.2 ObjectSizeBehavior 221

13.3 ExplodeBehavior 224

13.4 StretchBehavior 227

13.5 Using behaviors for debugging 230

Calculating the rendered FPS using a behavior 231

13.6 Summary 232

14 Using texture images 234

14.1 Introduction 235

Static mapping using per-vertex texture coordinates 237 ♦ Dynamic mapping using TexCoordGeneration 245

14.2 3D texture coordinates 251

14.3 Texture and multiple levels of detail 252

Boundary color 252 ♦ Boundary mode 252 ♦ Setting the image 253 ♦ MIPMAP mode, filter, and multiple texture images 253

14.4 TextureAttributes 257

Blend color 257 Mode 258 Transform 260

14.5 Using transparent geometry with transparent texture images 262

14.6 Animated (video) texture mapping 265

14.7 Summary 266

15 Geometry utility classes and object loaders 267

15.1 Introduction 267

15.2 Triangulator, normal vector generator, stripifier 268

15.3 Object loaders 270

LoaderBase 270 SceneBase interface 270 Using the ObjectFile loader 271 Third-party object loaders 273

15.4 Summary 274

16 Object interaction?picking and collision detection 275

16.1 Introduction to picking 275

16.2 PickShapes 276

16.3 PickTool 277

16.4 PickCanvas 278

16.5 PickIntersection 278

16.6 PickResult 279

16.7 VRML picking example 280

16.8 Using picking for collision detection 293

16.9 Conclusions 300

17 Java 3D, Swing, and applets 301

17.1 Building the Java 3D Swing application 301

17.2 Adding support for running as an applet 318

Original HTML applet code 319 ♦ Using the Java 2 plug-in HTMLConverter 320 ♦ The end-user experience 321 ♦ Automatic Java 3D installation 323 ♦ Applets and security 324

17.3 Conclusions 324

18 Java 3D system architecture 325

18.1 Introduction 325

18.2 Threads running a Java 3D application 326

Native Windows threads running a Java 3D application 327

18.3 MasterControl 327

System properties read by Java 3D 335

18.4 BehaviorScheduler 335

18.5 InputDeviceScheduler 336

18.6 Renderer 336

GraphicsContext3D commands 337 ♦ RenderAtoms and RenderMolecule 337

18.7 StructureUpdateThread 338

18.8 TimerThread 338

18.9 SceneGraphObject 338

18.10 Node types 339

18.11 Exception Strings 340

18.12 J3D DLL 340

Exported methods 340 ♦ Imported methods 344

18.13 Summary 348

A Example code 349

A.1 List of examples 349

A.2 Installation notes 351

A.3 Instructions for running the examples 352

Running applet examples 352

B Programming and graphics resources online 353

C Primitives, the geometry cache, and GeomBuffer 358

C.1 Box objects and GeomBuffer 358

C.2 Primitives and the geometry cache 362

C.3 GeomBuffer 363

 
bibliography 365
index 367