Klawonn - Introduction to Computer Graphics Using Java 2D and 3D (Springer, 2008).pdf - Java - sigebryht

Frank Klawonn

Introduction to

Computer Graphics

Using Java 2D and 3D

ABC

Frank Klawonn, MSc, PhD

Department of Computer Science

University of Applied Sciences Braunschweig/Wolfenbuettel

Germany

Series editor

Ian Mackie, École Polytechnique, France and King s College London, UK

Advisory board

Samson Abramsky, University of Oxford, UK

Chris Hankin, Imperial College London, UK

Dexter Kozen, Cornell University, USA

Andrew Pitts, University of Cambridge, UK

Hanne Riis Nielson, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Steven Skiena, Stony Brook University, USA

Iain Stewart, University of Durham, UK

David Zhang, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007939533

Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science ISSN 1863-7310

ISBN: 978-1-84628-847-0

e-ISBN: 978-1-84628-848-7

Originally published in the German language by Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn Verlag, 65189 Wiesbaden,

Germany, as “Frank Klawonn: Grundkurs Computergrafik mit Java. 1. Auflage”. © Friedr. Vieweg &

Sohn Verlag |GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden 2005

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted

under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or

transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the

case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing

Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a

specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for

general use.

The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information

contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that

may be made.

Printed on acid-free paper

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

springer.com

Preface

Early computer graphics started as a research and application ﬁeld that was

the domain of only a few experts, for instance in the area of computer aided

design (CAD). Nowadays, any person using a personal computer beneﬁts from

the developments in computer graphics. Operating systems and application

programs with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) belong to the simplest appli-

cations of computer graphics. Visualisation techniques, ranging from simple

histograms to dynamic 3D animations showing changes of winds or currents

over time, use computer graphics in the same manner as popular computer

games. Even those who do not use a personal computer might see the results of

computer graphics on TV or in cinemas where parts of scenes or even a whole

movie might be produced by computer graphics techniques.

Without powerful hardware in the form of fast processors, suciently large

memory and special graphics cards, most of these applications would not have

been possible. In addition to these hardware requirements e cient algorithms

as well as programming tools that are easy to use and ﬂexible at the time are

required. Nowadays, a standard personal computer is sucient to generate im-

pressive graphics and animations using freely available programming platforms

like OpenGL or Java 3D. In addition to at least an elementary understanding

of programming, the use of such platforms also requires basic knowledge about

the underlying background, concepts and methods of computer graphics.

Aims of the book

The aim of this book is to explain the necessary background and principles of

computer graphics combined with direct applications in concrete and simple

examples. Coupling the theory with the practical examples enables the reader

to apply the technical concepts directly and to visually understand what they

Preface

mean.

Java 2D and Java 3D build the basis for the practical examples. Wherever

possible, the introduced concepts and theory of computer graphics are imme-

diately followed by their counterparts in Java 2D and Java 3D. However, the

intention of this book is not to provide a complete introduction to Java 2D

or Java 3D, which would both need a multivolume edition themselves without

even touching the underlying theoretical concepts of computer graphics.

In order to directly apply computer graphics concepts introduced in this

book, the book focusses on the parts of Java 2D and Java 3D that are absolutely

relevant for these concepts. Sometimes a simple solution is preferred over the

most general one so that not all possible options and additional parameters

for an implementation will be discussed. The example programs are kept as

simple as possible in order to concentrate on the important concepts and not

to disguise them in complex, but more impressive scenes.

There are some selected additional topics—for instance the computation of

shadows within computer graphics—that are introduced in the book, although

Java 3D does not provide such techniques yet.

Why Java?

There are various reasons for using Java 2D and Java 3D as application plat-

forms. The programming language Java becomes more and more popular in

applications and teaching so that extensions like Java 2D/3D seem to be the

most obvious choice. Many universities use Java as the introductory program-

ming language, not only in computer science, but also in other areas so that

students with a basic knowledge in Java can immediately start to work with

Java 2D/3D. Speciﬁcally, for multimedia applications Java is very often the

language of ﬁrst choice.

Overview

The ﬁrst chapters of the book focus on aspects of two-dimensional computer

graphics like how to create and draw lines, curves and geometric shapes, han-

dling of colours and techniques for animated graphics.

Chapter 5 and all following chapters cover topics of three-dimensional com-

puter graphics. This includes modelling of 3D objects and scenes, producing

images from virtual 3D scenes, animation, interaction, illumination and shad-

ing. The last chapter introduces selected special topics, for example special

eﬀects like fog, sound eﬀects and stereoscopic viewing.

Preface

vii

Guidelines for the reader

In order to be able to apply the computer graphics concepts introduced in this

book, the reader will need only very elementary knowledge of the programming

language Java. The example programs in this book use Java 3D but also Java

2D in the ﬁrst chapters, since two-dimensional representations are essential for

computer graphics and the geometrical concepts are easier to understand in

two dimensions than in three. The necessary background of Java 2D and Java

3D is included as application sections in this book.

Although the coupling of theory and practice was a main guideline for

writing this book, the book can also be used as an introduction to the gen-

eral concepts of computer graphics without focussing on speciﬁc platforms or

learning how to use Java 2D or Java 3D. Skipping all sections and subsections

containing the word “Java” in their headlines, the book will remain completely

self-contained in the sense of a more theoretical basic introduction to computer

graphics. For some of the computer graphics concepts introduced in this book

it is assumed that the reader has basic knowledge about vectors, matrices and

elementary calculus.

Supplemental resources

Including the complete source code of all mentioned example programs would

have led to a thicker, but less readable book. In addition, no one would like to

take the burden of typing the source code again in order to run the examples.

Therefore, the book itself only contains those relevant excerpts of the source

code that are referred to in the text. The complete source code of all example

programs and additional programs can be downloaded from the book web site

http://public.rz.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/

∼

klawonn/computergraphics

This online service also provides additional exercises concerning the theo-

retical background as well programming tasks including sketches of solutions,

teaching material in the form of slides and some ﬁles that are needed for the

example programs. The links mentioned in the appendix and further links to

some interesting web sites can also be found at the online service of this book.

Acknowledgements

Over the years, the questions, remarks and proposals of my students had a great

inﬂuence on how this book was written. I cannot list all of them by name, but I

would like to mention at least Daniel Beier, Thomas Weber, Jana Volkmer and

especially Dave Bahr for reading the manuscript and their extremely helpful

Klawonn - Introduction to Computer Graphics Using Java 2D and 3D (Springer, 2008).pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: