This may seem a bit odd, but bear with me! We've been using Processing.org's great graphics system: the libraries and the nifty IDE and tools for managing "sketchbooks" (projects), building web pages/applets, and even building applications for Windows, Mac and Linux. We've had success (i.e. got paid for!) two projects using Processing: a Stadium model, and a generalized Data Visualization system. Quite nice.
So now we've got two interesting environments for modeling: NetLogo, our old friend which keeps getting better, and Processing which seems great for what I'd call "wire frame" modeling. We've also got high end rendering experience with Blender: we can both use it to build Processing meshes for our models and can render agent motion inside blender, using NetLogo and Processing output. BUT we're missing a "sweet spot" in the middle: a fairly realistic 3D environment that can do realtime modeling .. i.e. animation via behavior. We also want to have some notion of "physics" .. i.e. things bouncing off walls or agents colliding. (Blender thus far has not worked, but we're still poking.) This prompting me to look into Java graphics and game books, one of which is Killer Game Programming in Java. The book has a website which includes a LOT of material that is not in his book: http://fivedots.coe.psu.ac.th/~ad/jg/ This let to getting in touch with the author, asking for pointers to "game engines", see email attached. Now to the question to FRIAM: Has anyone found a good environment for agent based modeling with "game-like" 3D realism and with modest libraries for collision detection, scene graphs and so on? -- Owen Owen Densmore http://backspaces.net Begin forwarded message: > From: "Dr. Andrew Davison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: September 4, 2006 10:56:45 PM MDT > To: Owen Densmore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Processing.org > > > Owen, > > Thanks for the pointer to processing.org. It's a very nice system. > >> We're also looking for Java "game engines" to make our work >> simpler. Do you have any pointers? > > Here's a snippet from an article I'm writing: > > Xith3D (http://xith.org) uses the same basic scene graph structure > as Java 3D, but can also directly call OpenGL operations. Since the > high-level APIs of Xith3D and Java 3D are so similar, porting Java > 3D code over to Xith3D is fairly straightforward. There are > versions of Xith3D that run on top of JOGL and LWJGL. > > jME Graphics Engine (jMonkey Engine, http:// > www.mojomonkeycoding.com/) was inspired by the scene graph engine > described in 3D Game Engine Design by David H. Eberly (http:// > www.magic-software.com/Books.html). jME is built on top of LWJGL. > > JAVA is DOOMED (http://javaisdoomed.sourceforge.net) includes > loaders for Quake 2 MD2 and 3D Studio Max 3DS files . The > implementation uses JOGL, and the distribution includes Escape, a > Doom-like game. > > Aviatrix3D (http://aviatrix3d.j3d.org/) is a retained-mode Java > scene graph API above JOGL. Its tool set is aimed at data > visualization rather than gaming, and supports CAVEs, domes, and HMDs. > > JView (http://www.rl.af.mil/tech/programs/JVIEW/) is another > visualization API, supporting both 2D and 3D graphics, developed by > the U.S. Air Force Research Lab. GL4Java, an older low-level Java > API for OpenGL, was used to build it. > > Espresso3D (http://www.espresso3d.com/), a games-oriented library, > includes OpenAL audio, sprites, collision detection, input, and > rendering support. It's built using LWJGL. > > - Andrew > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
