In doing my research I primarily work with F.S. Nooruddin. He and I work on a daily basis. Here is what we've been doing...

WEEK 1:

The first week was directed toward getting me familiar with C++. This week F.S. wanted me to particularly learn about one part of C++: classes. He gave me a book entitledThe C++ Programming Language in which I was to read two chapters. One chapter discussed classes and the other discussed the relation between design and the C++ programming language. After I read those chapters, F.S. and I began working on an example program of a class. He made up a class called Employee_class and during this entire week, I learned how to build a class from scratch. He showed me how to add certain things like a manager to the class and by the end of the week I was able to build a class on my own. F.S. told me what he wanted in a class and, I was able to do it on my own.

WEEK 2:

During this week, I began to work with actual graphic materials. I started off by viewing a program that displayed a red cone and, my task was to first change the color of the cone. I completed that task and, then I was to add a sphere to the program and make it and the cone different colors. I easily completed that task and was on to the next one.

F.S. began to introduce me to the many different viewers that are used to view 3D objects in graphics. I started off with the Examiner viewer. I had to write the program that viewed the different color cone and sphere into the Examiner viewer so I could see how the viewer was used. Once that was done, I experimented with the different aspects of color: diffuse, shininess, specular, etc. I also experimented with using rotation, translation, and scales. This was all done so that I could see how the many different operations worked.

Towards the end of the week I experimented with other types of viewer: the fly viewer, walk viewer, and the plane viewer. I also got my assignment for next week.

WEEK 3:

This week I was given a program to modifying so that it would write out certain things that F.S. assigned. The program originally converted an Inventor program into a ply program. I thought that this would be a difficult task but, once I acutally began to do it, I realized that it was really pretty simple.It took me two days to do the program: Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday F.S.gave me another program to modify the week that he is away.

WEEK 4:

This week I took a continuing education class on Monday - Wednesday. I also modified a program so that it can view geometric objects. It is a combination of two other programs: the one that I just modified last week and the program that I wrote earlier that displays objects in the Examiner viewer. I have to insert an IndexedFaceSet into the program. Once this is done, the program will be just about ready to view any geometric object.

WEEK 5:

I finished inserting the IndexedFaceSet into the program this week. This task took longer than expected. There were many unexpected obstacles that took place. Once that was done I had to add color to it. Adding color to the program took more time than originally thought. I added color but, it only showed on the boundary lines of the geometric object. F.S. and I had to figure out why this was so. At the end of the week we were still working on this.

WEEK 6:

It took some time but, the problem with the color was finally solved. The program now shows as many colors as specified on the vertices. The next step was to add a camera to the program so that it can read the camera from the original Examiner program. After some critical thinking, this task was also accomplished.

My research is basically done now. Geometric objects can now be viewed in the users own format. I created a program that actually allows a user to do this. I really did not realize how much I was accomplishing when I was working but, now that it is over I can really see what I have done.

Back Home

---

Last Modified: 26 July 98 by Robbie K. Barnes (robbie@cc.gatech.edu)