White Papers / Guides / Presentations

• Java 3D^TM API Datasheet
  

• Java 3D^TM API Tutorial Updated - Now Includes Chapter on Textures.
  Need help programming Java 3D API? This tutorial is an excellent starting point, with clear descriptions and examples of the most commonly used features in Java 3D API.

  Download complete tutorial (2.8MB zip or 3.7MB tar) and examples (324Kb zip or 338Kb tar).

  View Chapters On-line (PDF viewer available from Adobe)

  Chapter 0, Preface, Appendices, and Glossary
  Chapter 1, Getting Started
  Chapter 2, Creating Content
  Chapter 3, Easier Content Creation
  Chapter 4, Interaction
  Chapter 5, Animation
  Chapter 6, Lights
  Chapter 7, Textures
  

• Java 3D API presentation from JavaOne 99
  This presentation was given, in 3D stereo, by Henry Sowizral, Chief Architect of Java 3D at Sun Microsystems.
• Java 3D API 1.1 Performance Guide
  The Java 3D API 1.1 Performance Guide presents the performance features of the Java 3D API. It describes the specific APIs included for performance, currently implemented optimizations and a number of tips and tricks to improve the performance of your applications.
• Java 3D: For Developers and End-Users
• Download the Java 3D Technology Roadshow course notes and examples:
  Notes (PDF) | Notes (Postscript) | Examples (tar.Z) | Examples (.zip)
• View or download the SIGGRAPH 98 Java 3D technology course notes:
  View HTML | HTML compressed .gz (7 MB)
• Java 3D API Class Hierarchy Diagram
• VecMath Class Hierarchy Diagram
• Java 3D API Datasheet
• Java in Digital Content Creation Technical White Paper
  
• The Java 3D API
  
• The Fourth Generation of 3D Graphics APIs
• JavaHouse^TM VRML World
  Download the JavaHouse software demo, a VRML world that shows the various pieces of the Java 2 environment, and the Java 3D API viewer necessary to view the animation. View the example screen or download the JavaHouse software demo.

Articles

• The Java 3D API and Virtual Reality
  (IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, May/June 1999)
• Exploring the Java 3D API
  (Performance Computing, April 1999)
  
• 3D Graphics Programming in Java: Part 1 by Bill Day
  (JavaWorld, December 1998)
  
• 3D Graphics Programming in Java: Part 2 by Bill Day
  (JavaWorld, January 1999)
• Enterprise Decision Support
  
• Big Splash: Java Technology and the Virtual Fish Tank
  
• MCAD with Java 3D
  

Books
Books can be purchased online from Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

Java 3D Programming
Author: Daniel Selman
ISBN: 188477797X
This book steps programmers through the important design andimplementation 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.

This book will be available in April 2000. You may place an order for it now.

The Java 3D^TM API Specification, Second Edition
Authors: Henry Sowizral, Kevin Rushforth, Michael Deering
ISBN: 0-201-71041-2
This book presents the definitive Java 3D API specification, complete with authoritative and detailed descriptions of each element. It offers an informative overview of Java 3D, comprehensive instructions for "scene graph" definition and construction, and coverage of the Java 3D View Model. Various input devices are featured, including six-degrees-of-freedom trackers, picking mechanisms, behaviors and interpolators for animating objects, and audio capabilities. The Java 3D Execution and Rendering Model is described in depth, including the immediate, retained, and compiled-retained modes.

It is now available in book stores everywhere. In particular, you can order it online from fatbrain.com.

Ready-to-Run Java 3D, with plug-and-play code
Authors: Kirk Brown, Dan Petersen; Forward by James Gosling
ISBN 0-471-31702-0
A crash course in Java 3D and ready-to-use applets to make any Web site leap off the screen. With this book in hand, Web developers can learn how to radically enhance their Web sites with interactive content that is rich in realism and depth. Each chapter is built around a ready-to-run Java 3D applet and begins with detailed usage instructions. This is followed by a technical tutorial that explains how the applets were created using the Java 3D API by Sun Microsystems. The CD-ROM contains 12 3D applets and links to third-party tool vendors.

3D User Interfaces with Java 3D
Authors: Jon Barrilleaux
ISBN: 1884777902
3D User Interfaces with Java 3D is a practical guide for providing next-generation applications with 3D user interfaces for manipulation of in-scene objects. Emphasis is on standalone and web-based business applications, such as for online sales and mass customization, but much of what this book offers has broad applicability to 3D user interfaces in other pursuits such as scientific visualization and gaming. This book provides an extensive conceptual framework for 3D user interface techniques, and an in-depth introduction to user interface support in the Java 3D API, including such topics as picking, collision, and drag-and-drop. Many of the techniques are demonstrated in a Java 3D software framework included with the book, which also provides developers with many general-purpose building blocks for constructing their own user interfaces. Applications and their use of 3D are approached realistically. The book is geared towards sophisticated user interfaces for the "everyday user" who doesn't have a lot of time to learn another application--much less a complicated one--and an everyday computer system without exotic devices like head mounted displays and data gloves. Perhaps the best description of this book is: " A roadmap from Java 3D to 'Swing 3D'."

You can read more about it at http://www.manning.com/Barrilleaux/index.html.

[ This page was updated: 19-Jun-00 ]