3d

Is OpenGL dead?

I recently found out that OpenGL 3.0 was released a week ago. I glanced through the specification and read through some of the forum posts on the Khronos message board, and... I'm devastated. Not only did they not release the promised object model, but they deprecated most of the functionality that, IMHO, made OpenGL great, in favor of a...

Is there a secret trick to force antialiasing inside Viewport3D in Windows XP?

Under Windows XP WPF true 3D content (wich is usually displayed using the Viewport3D control) looks extremely ugly because it is by default not antialiased as the rest of the WPF graphics are. Especially at lower resolution the experience is so bad that it can not be used in production code. I have managed to force antialiasing on some ...

3D in virtual machines

What VMs can be used for 3D programming? I was disappointed to find out that VMware products only have experimental support and even that only for 2D acceleration. ...

Lightweight 3D Graphics Engine .NET (Compact and Full Framework)

Hi *, I am creating a GUI for a machine that runs remote (WinXP) or on the machine itself (Windows CE 6.0). Right now I've created a fast visualisation (read: very simple) of the machine itself. The goal is to make a bit more complex visualisation of the machine and for that I would need a lightweight 3d engine. The engine should run ...

API for server-side 3D rendering

I'm working on an application that needs to quickly render simple 3D scenes on the server, and then return them as a JPEG via HTTP. Basically, I want to be able to simply include a dynamic 3D scene in an HTML page, by doing something like: <img src="http://www.myserver.com/renderimage?scene=1&amp;x=123&amp;y=123&amp;z=123"&gt; My ques...

Learning OpenGL ES 1.x

What is the quickest way to come up to speed on OpenGL ES 1.x? Let's assume I know nothing about OpenGL (which is not entirely true, but it's been a while since I last used OpenGL). I am most interested in learning this for iPhone-related development, but I'm interested in learning how it works on other platforms as well. I've found t...

What's the best alternative to C++ for real-time graphics programming?

C++ just sucks too much of my time by making me micro-manage my own memory, making me type far too much (hello std::vector<Thingy>::const_iterator it = lotsOfThingys.begin()), and boring me with long compile times. What's the single best alternative for serious real-time graphics programming? Garbage collection is a must (as is the abi...

How do I reverse-project 2D points into 3D?

I have 4 2D points in screen-space, and I need to reverse-project them back into 3D space. I know that each of the 4 points is a corner of a 3D-rotated rigid rectangle, and I know the size of the rectangle. How can I get 3D coordinates from this? I am not using any particular API, and I do not have an existing projection matrix. I'm jus...

Dense pixelwise reverse projection

I saw a question on reverse projecting 4 2D points to derive the corners of a rectangle in 3D space. I have a kind of more general version of the same problem: Given either a focal length (which can be solved to produce arcseconds / pixel) or the intrinsic camera matrix (a 3x2 matrix that defines the properties of the pinhole camera mo...

What's the best way to calculate a 3D (or n-D) centroid?

As part of a project at work I have to calculate the centroid of a set of points in 3D space. Right now I'm doing it in a way that seems simple but naive -- by taking the average of each set of points, as in: centroid = average(x), average(y), average(z) where x, y and z are arrays of floating-point numbers. I seem to recall that ther...

A Good 3D mesh library

I'm looking for a good 3D Mesh library Should be able to read popular formats (OFF, OBJ...) Should support both half-edge structure and a triangle soup Should be tolerant to faults and illegal meshes. Basic geometric operations - intersections, normal calculation, etc' Most importantly - Should not be convoluted with endless template a...

Volumetric particles

Hey guys, I'm toying with the idea of volumetric particles. By 'volumetric' I don't mean actually 3D model per particle - usually it's more expensive and harder to blend with other particles. What I mean is 2D particles that will look as close as possible to be volumetric. Right now what I/we have tried is particles with additional l...

Point-Triangle Collision Detection in 3D

How do I correct for floating point error in the following physical simulation: Original point (x, y, z), Desired point (x', y', z') after forces are applied. Two triangles (A, B, C) and (B, C, D), who share edge BC I am using this method for collision detection: For each Triangle If the original point is in front of the current...

When to use Binary Space Partitioning, Quadtree, Octree?

I have recently learned about binary space partitioning trees and their application to 3d graphics and collision detection. I have also briefly perused material relating to quadtrees and octrees. When would you use quadtrees over bsp trees, or vice versa? Are they interchangeable? I would be satisfied if I had enough information to f...

How to generate one texture from N textures?

Let's say I have N pictures of an object, taken from N know positions. I also have the 3D geometry of the object, and I know all the characteristics of both the camera and the lens. I want to generate a unique giant picture from the N pictures I have, so that it can be mapped/projected onto the object surface. Does anybody knows where ...

Best way to translate mouse drag motion into 3d rotation of an object

I have a 3d object that I wish to be able to rotate around in 3d. The easiest way is to directly translate X and Y mouse motion to rotation about the Y and X axes, but if there is some rotation along both axes, the way the model rotates becomes highly counterintuitive (i.e. if you flip the object 180 degrees about one axis, your motion ...

XNA Game Studio 3D model editor suggestions

I want to create basic low-poly 3D models to use in XNA Game Studio games. What cheap/free tools do people recommend? And does anyone have any links or snippets of code that show how to load 3D models of some sort into XNA and then draw them on the screen? ...

MMORPG / VR Architecture

Could anyone provide a link to the article / blog discussing architecture of the MMORPG or Virtual Reality Server or other system with rich 3D client. ...

Reverse-projection 2D points into 3D

Suppose we have a 3d Space with a plane on it with an arbitary equation : ax+by+cz+d=0 now suppose that we pick 3 random points on that plane: (x0,y0,z0) (x1,y1,z1) (x1,y1,z1) now i have a different point of view(camera) for this plane. i mean i have a different camera that will look at this plane from a different point of view. From th...

3d to 2d Projection Matrix

I have 3 points in 3d space. I know the exact locations of them. Suppose they are (x0,y0,z0) (x1,y1,z1) (x2,y2,z2) Also i have a camera that are looking at these 3 points and i know the 2d locations of those three points on camera view plane. So for example (x0,y0,z0) will be (x0',y0') and (x1,y1,z1) will be (x1',y1') and (x2,y2,z2) wil...