Java 3D Programming

Book excerpt: Java 3D Programming steps programmers through the important design and implementation phases of developing a successful Java 3D application. The book provides invaluable guidance on whether to use Java 3D, user interface design, geometry creation, scene manipulation and final optimizations. The book does not attempt to exhaustively cover the API or replicate the official documentation but rather serves as a roadmap to alert programmers of design issues and potential pitfalls. The author distills 12 months of using the Java 3D API for commercial projects, as well as innumerable discussions on the Java 3D email list into a book that all Java 3D developers will appreciate. Experienced Java 3D developers will applaud an authoritative resource containing the state-of-the-art in techniques and workarounds, while novice Java 3D programmers will gain a fast-track into Java 3D development, avoiding the confusion, frustration and time wasted learning Java 3D techniques and terminology. Java 3D Programming comes complete with a comprehensive set of programming examples to illustrate the techniques, features, workarounds and bug fixes contained in the main text. Readers of this book would include students and postgraduate researchers developing visualization applications for academia. Moderately experienced in Java, some experience of 3D graphics, little or no experience of Java 3D is needed. R+D s/w engineers at commercial institutions. Experienced Java developers, experienced with OpenGL or VRML, little or no experience with Java 3D.