Chapter 15. A 3D Checkboard

This chapter describes a Java 3D example called Checker3D: it creates a scene consisting of a dark green and blue tiled surface with labels along the X and Z axes, a blue background, and a floating sphere lit from two different directions. The user (viewer) can move through the scene by moving the mouse.

The first screenshot on this page show the initial view; the second image was taken after the user had moved.

This chapter will discuss the following Java 3D techniques: [Ball2 PIC]

Canvas3D creation and its integration with Swing;
scene graph creation;
ambient and directional lighting;
backgrounds using constant colour;
the QuadArray, Sphere, and Text2D geometries;
shape colouring and lighting;
shape positioning;
viewpoint positioning;
viewpoint movement using OrbitBehavior;
how to generate a scene graph diagram.

Much of the code in this example will be reused in later chapters.

Downloads

The PDF file for the draft chapter (the old ch.8) (335 KB). Last updated: 27th Jan. 2003.
Zipped Source code (8 KB). Last updated: 15th April 2005. The book's code.
Daniel Selman's Java3dTree package (JAR file) (73 KB).
This package is part of the source code downloadable from http://www.manning.com/selman/ for Selman's excellent Java 3D Programming textbook.

Navigation:

Up to the Killer Game Programming in Java Index Page
Back to Introduction to Java 3D
On to Chapter 16: Loading and Manipulating External Models

Dr. Andrew Davison
E-mail: ad@coe.psu.ac.th
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