Resources

j3d.org

Useful Sites

This section is devoted to sites that we think are interesting and useful for Java 3D.

 

Java 3D Information & Documents

 

Java 3D Based Applications/Content

  • EventScope A teaching tool to allow students to explore 3D representation of NASA mission data.
  • VisAD is a Java class library for interactive and collaborative visualization and analysis of numerical data. This package has GREAT support behind it and is well worth taking a look at.
  • J3dFly Sun's attempt to build a large-scale demonstration program of Java 3D's capabilities (similar to Perfly for those that know SGI Performer). Includes scenegraph serialisation and more. Follow the download links.
  • UVA (U-DL-A Visualization Aid). A visualisation tool that explores grouping categories based on hierarchical information
  • Bang Space Inc. has an open source virtual reality program available for Java 3D.
  • German Enigma machine model. The Enigma machine was the crypto system developed by the Germans during WWII.
  • Molecular Visualisation System. A GPL'd software suite for performing molecular visualisation tasks.
  • Java Molecular Viewer. A simple Java-based molecular viewer from the Uni of Illinois.
  • WebScope Product Design Collaboration System A collaborative environment for realtime annotation and markup of 3D objects. Doesn't seem to do full editing, but for more design discussions etc.
  • Surface Optics Corp. Static environment for providing a user friendly front end for making Radar Cross Section databases.
  • Help system for pedestrians in indoor and outdoor environments. Research project to generate informative multimedia presentations, like 2D sketches, 3D animations and virtual walkthroughs to help the user to navigate in unknown environments.
  • AQWA Sequence Player. Application that displays 3D rendered offshore structures in a given seaway
  • Virtual Animated Drummer project. A research project that uses a Java 3D animated avatar to beat to the music patterns.
  • Java 3D Community MMORPG Project. A community of and for developers looking to build Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games using Java 3D.
  • Examina3D A 3D content presentation engine for web pages.
  • JCad A 3D CAD application written in Java 3D.
  • AniFun3 A Scene Graph editor tool for Java3D.
  • CollabCAD Java/Java3D-based CAD tool developed by the Computer Aided Design Group of National Informatics Centre of India. Very extensive implementation work already done.
  • Lab3D Gel Electrophoresis, Lab3D Enyzme Kinematics. Lab3D Amino Acid Titration. A virtual experiments for teaching about various chemistry topics.
  • 3D Information System Design. A tool for designing and building large scale information systems.
  • An interactive cloth simulation applet used as part of a larger research project.
  • TT 1.0 A 3D environment used to teach engineering students the principles of stress analysis in a cube.
  • TogetherView A family of cross platform tools for visualization, sharing and collaboration of 3D and 2D data.
  • Very cool looking, Java3D scene graph editor. There's no direct web page for it, but the download is here. Lina Ruiz, the author, posted a couple of pictures with the announcement message, so I've copied them here and here.
  • Webjack is an application that creates a virtual space to allow you to organise and navigate your internet bookmarks.
  • JMVS An open source (GPL) molecular visualisation tool for viewing Protein Data Bank (PDB) format files.
  • Tools & Techniques

  • J3D Incubator A java.net community project for sharing example and utility code that on their own are either too small or too experimental to warrant a separate project. As projects mature, they can be moved to separate sub projects or part of the core utilities (j3d-core-utils project).
  • Rez A tool for translating topological grids and generating multiresolution 3D terrains optimised for web browsing.
  • VisualXXL A visualisation tool for 3D viewing of relational database queries. A project from the Database Research Group, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany.
  • Warm-cool shading demo This little JAVA3D applet demonstrates a tone based cool warm shading as first presented in A Non-Photorealistic Lighting Model For Automatic Technical Illustrations Amy Gooch, Bruce Gooch, Peter Shirley, Elaine Cohen Department of Computer Science University of Utah. It uses multipass rendering technique for adding specular highlights.
  • Toon shading demo Demo of creating Toon shaders with Java3D.
  • Water Particle System (In German). Includes wind models and simple collision detection.
  • Virtual Globe. A dynamic visualisation tool for global scale geometry and terrain databases. Client side does the rendering while the server generates terrain geometry dynamically as the user moves about the world.
  • Hyperdrive. A scene and scenario authoring tool for Hyperion's line of driving simulators.
  • The Web3D Consortium Source Task Group has a VRML/X3D browser they're working on, using Java 3D.
  • Building 3-D User Interface Components Using a Visualization Library. By Bill Hibbard (of VisAD). Feb 2002 Computer Graphics.
  • Fastscript3D. A web friendly companion to Java3D that makes it easy to get started writing 3D web applets using Java3D via JavaScript and HTML. FastScript3D is open source and from NASA's JPL.
  • Java3D Game SDK An Open Source project contentrating on developing an SDK for writing games in Java and Java3D.
  • ezStereo An application for stereo visualisation, particularly related to eye point setup.
  • WorldShow3D A browser and development environment for quickly constructing virtual worlds of various types.
  • Blend2Java Exporter for blender that is generating Java3D output.
  • Jython3D Tools and APIs to access Java3D from Jython - the pure Java port of the Python programming language.
  • SystemJ. An IDE for Java3D. Site and application is in Spanish.
  • Genesis FX Particle System. A commercial particle system engine for Java3D.
  • General Interest

  • DALiWorld. Modeled on the diverse habitat of the Indonesian Ocean, DALiWorld is a virtual ocean distributed across millions of computers, inhabited by artificial life that is able to swim through the network from machine to machine.
  • Selection3D An applet that allows a user to explore various creature designs by using selection criteria based on aesthetics.
  • Digiloop A system that augments virtual prototyping with physical objects, allowing the perception of size, weight and texture purely digital virtual prototypes cannot give. Lots of good J3D device implementations such as gloves.
  • Wilmascope. Open Source (LGPL) drawing tool that creates real time 3d animations of dynamic graph structures
  • The Virtual Fish Tank One of the first demos of Java 3D and also uses JSDT to provide a shared experience across many sites.
  • JDraw3D A moderately complex drawing/rendering package written in Java3D.
  • Games

  • Cassos An Open Source Java3D game that also uses a number of the utilities found both here and other places (such as the loaders). Project is maintained on SourceForge: Project Site.
  • Cosm A MMPORG written originally with Java 3D, but has now shifted to their own scene graph API Xith3D.
  • Pernica A small scale 3D commerical RPG written with Java 3D.
  • Pyramid. A simple 3D game that uses Java 3D. Can operate in red-green stereo mode.
  • Odium A 3D game that runs under both JDK 1.1 using a software renderer and JDK 1.2 with Java 3D
  • XiStrat Framework for strategic, turn-based multi-player board games on 3d-visualized graphs over the internet.
  • Out of Space. A fast paced action game with the goal of outmaneuvering your opponents. Strategy flying genres in the one game. Also includes an exporter from 3DSMax for its custom format and a Java3D Loader for it too. All source is available.
  • CazaPool3D. 8 ball pool game with both single player and multiplayer abilities.
  • SumoBallz. A fun little game where you try to knock the an opponent off a rotating ball.
  • Demos

  • Java3D Games Testing Website Contains a number of simpler demo games written using Java3D. They are looking for testers and coders to help out.
  • VirtualExp A huge collection of Java3D applets online. Good demos of some of the things Java 3D can do.
  • Java 3D Demos A collection of student projects in Java 3D. Check out the Glymp3D game.
  • Mobile Augmented Reality Systems. A demo shown in the Emerging Technologies area of Siggraph 2001.
  • jose A Graphical Chess game written in Java3D. Features lots of advanced graphics techniques and a very cool demo applet.
  • Infovis.biz visualisation demos. Some demos on how to do information visualisation, both in 2D and 3D.
  • Psyanimations A set of applets that implement some of the old-school style DemoScene visualisations.
  • Editors

  • EquitySoft has WYSIWYG scene editor called Jicasso.
  • Anima3D. A simple key framed based animation studio. Anima3d allows the user to construct articulated structures and design the scene using materials, textures and lights. (Site is in spanish).
  • SceneBuilder Graphical Java3D scenegraph builder. In German.

 

Other 3D Java APIs

  • JOGL The formal Sun-led group that is defining the Java bindings to OpenGL as part of the JSR 231 process.
  • jME is a 3d scene graph based rendering environment currently ran under LWJGL but abstracted away for JOGL or anything else. There are already a number of model loaders for popular file formats as well as an active development community.
  • LWJGL is another Java binding to OpenGL. It takes a different approach the binding to the JOGL project. Is currently running on Win32, Linux and Mac OS X
  • Xith3D is a scene graph API that mimics the Java3D scene graph, but the implementation focuses on the game developer rather than large scale rendering. Several parts have been left out and more features added and is slowly diverging from the original Java3D API definitions.

 

Other Java

  • JGuru Home of many FAQs and tutorials for all things java related.
  • IBM's DeveloperWorks Java Zone More tutorials and helpful suggestions. Some columnists as well.
  • JavaWorld online mag.
  • JRoundup An online community for Java developers
  • JavaReport Online version of the Java Report print magazine.
  • JavaPro online mag. Looks to be mainly commerically oriented development rather than beginner tutorials.
  • JXInput. A Java based binding for MS DirectInput control devices. Obviously, only works on Win32. Doesn't support the Java3D Sensor interface yet, but that is planned for the near future. Once we see that, we'll shift the link to the InputDevice page.
  • Polyhedreon at Geowood. A Java2D based online tutorial about various forms of polyhedron. No Java3D.
  • LightWeight GL. An Open Source project to build simplified, lightweight wrappers around a number of commonly used cross-platform APIs with the view to build game engines from it.
  • jrMan An open source implementation of the REYES rendering algorithm (the heart of Pixar's Renderman).

 

Other 3D Graphics

 

3D/VR Groups and Communities

  • Web3D Consortium Standards body promoting 3D graphics in web browsers. Here you can also find repositories of sounds, textures and other useful components for building your own 3D worlds.
  • Web3D Roundup. Site for the twice yearly madness of live demos of the latest 3D graphics toys, tools and companies.
  • The Contact Consortium. Huge online community and groups of developers that have an interest in VR technologies.
  • The VTerrain Project. A Huge repository of information and code for all aspects of terrain rendering. Mostly focussed on OpenGL though the techniques will be roughly useful.
  • City Of Night BBS. A VR interface written in Java3D to the long running (since 1983) BBS system.

 

Portals and e-Zines

  • VRNews One of the longest running news sites about 3D graphics on the Internet. Used to publish a print edition, but is now all electronic.
  • Web3d @ About.com. The web3d area at one of the biggest sites about.
  • Focus on Java @ About.com. The Java area at one of the biggest sites about.
  • 3DeZine News and reviews about 3D graphics information with some bent towards web3d.
  • 3D ARK 3D Graphics news of all types.
  • E3D News News site with monthly newsletter about the goings-on in 3D e-commerce. Source of many of the links added to this site!
  • 3DGate News and information about general 3D graphics. Formerly the 3D Magazine.
  • 3DCafe Popular gathering place for general 3D graphics news.

 

Courses and Tutorials

  • Object Lessons Java3D course. Covers introductory and intermediate concepts of Java3D.