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Java 3D Tutorials

Here we hope over time that you will find a number of tutorials about Java 3D. These tutorials cover all sorts of scope from simple getting started, to complex performance enhancement routines.

These tutorials are held locally by the J3D.org server. We also maintain a complete list of offsite tutorials in the FAQ Documentation, Tutorials section.

 

Beginners

If you've never used Java 3D before or even done 3D programming, these tutorials are for you.

Brown University has some applets that demonstrate graphics principles.

Deutsch: PDF (1.5MB) Dieses Tutorial ist eine deutschsprachige Einführung in die Java3D-API. Die behandelten Themen sind u.a. Szenengraph, Geometrie, Interaktion, Animation und Texturen. Es ist in erster Linie für Einsteiger in Java3D gedacht, da vor allem grundlegende Konzepte behandelt werden, kann aber aufgrund der vielen Codebeispiele auch für erfahrenere Programmierer von Nutzen sein.

 

Hard Core

Designed for the experienced 3D programmer that may be moving to Java 3D and knows what a scene graph is and how it works. Also for the Java 3D programmer looking to build highly customised environments.

Raw J3D

This tutorial is focused on understanding the pure Java 3D APIs without reference to the utility classes provided by Sun. The aim is that at the end you should be able to create a completely customised application to do exactly what you want.

Collision Detection and Terrain Following

Many applications need the advanced features of true collision avoidance. Those that provide terrestrial based visualisation also probably want to use terrain following. Java3D does not provide this as part of the standard API. This tutorial will show you how to implement it yourself.

Terrain Rendering Techniques

Rendering large-scale terrains is a technique that is very important to many different uses of 3D graphics. Games use it, military flight simulators use it and even just your average housing CAD program would use it too. This tutorial is about explaining the concepts needed to understand both the terminology and also the basic implementation techniques to do this in Java3D.

 

Quick Fixes

Short, quick and dirty tutorials on a small topic area. Usually extracted from posts to the java3d-interest list.

Performance

J3D 1.3 Performance Tuning Guide

What to know to quickly get the best from your Java 3D application for the latest version of the spec (even though it is still in beta). This leads you through a couple of quick problems and solutions to make things run better.

J3D 1.1 Performance Tuning Guide

What to know how to quickly get the best from your Java 3D application. This leads you through a couple of quick problems and solutions to make things run better.

BranchGroup.compile()

What does it do, and why should you use it.

Techniques

Adding Transparency

The use of transparent objects in Java3D is something of a black art. This aims to outline the basics of how transparency is applied to objects.

Dot3 Bump Mapping

Bump mapping is a texturing technique very familiar to games programmers to make objects look more realistic. There are several different techniques, and Java 3D 1.3 introduces the simplest and most common version - using the texture combiner hardware of your video card.

Integrating Swing and Java 3D

The ever popular question about how to get Java 3D and swing playing nicely together is covered in this quick fix tutorial. It covers the major issues that you need to be aware of and some potential workarounds.

Volume Rendering

Yes, Java 3D can do volume rendering. Here is how to do it.

Backgrounder to Triangulator and GeometryInfo

These seemingly innocuous classes actually do a lot of work down the back. This introduces just what it does, and why it will benefit your application.

Non-photorealistic rendering

NPR with in Java3D is not something that you would expect to see. This code makes that possible. A simple tute shows one way of achieving NPR effects within Java3D runtime environment.

Setup

Java 3D Auto Installation (JDK 1.3)

JDK 1.3 features automatic installation of standard extensions. This allows the user to install java3d automatically if they don't already have it installed. A very useful feature for web based applications.

Making Visual J++ work with Sun's JDK

Microsoft's Visual J++ environment does not allow you to normally use Java 3D and many other standard API's because it does not implement the complete Java specification. None the less, it is possible to hack J++ to run the standard SUN VM and class libraries allowing you then use Java3D within the environment.

 
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Last Updated: $Date: 2006/04/18 18:20:03 $