Readme for Devs

Build & Run

This project uses the build automation tool gradle due to its compatibility with Java and its performance and ease of use / understandability. This project comes WITHOUT ANY external libraries, but instead with a gradle wrapper script which downloads these dependencies for you.

From the same directory as this README is in, open your shell of preference and type in the following commands:

• ./gradlew build
  • this will download all external jar files, and build the project
• ./gradlew run --args "arg0 arg1 arg2"
  • this will automatically execute the main method as specified in the build.gradle.kts file
  • other tasks include clean (remove all build files) and javadoc
  • arguments: {file <'full/file/path'> | scene {example1|example2} | color}

For Windows, use gradlew.bat instead.

Known Bugs

• Camera transformations are still not correctly implemented.

Fixed Bugs

• Phong illumination now correctly calculates specular highlights.
• All light sources are now correctly parsed and parallel light has been fixed.
• Matrix multiplication now works properly, and non-square multiplication is supported!
• Proper error message for non-existing files!

New Features

• XML Parser is now fully functional: supports OBJ-files and textures
• Shadows
• Basic Reflection

Unfinished / Buggy Features

• Triangles/Meshes: they appear distorted when parsed (Even after hours of debugging. I don't know what's wrong.)
• Textures: currently only work on spheres
• Transformations: matrices have been implemented, but don't apply correctly. Only translations on spheres seem to work.

Main Sources for this project

• "Shirley/Marshner": Fundamentals of Computer Graphics
• "scratchapixel": https://www.scratchapixel.com
• Youtube Series "Grafik in Java": https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNmsVeXQZj7rvhHip_LTM-J-5wHw7dWnw

Troubleshooting

Gradle isn't working! Make sure that you have your JAVA_HOME set, and the wrapper file lies at gradle/wrapper/. The gradlew script is auto-generated but very verbose, check its error messages!

Q&A

What's missing? Refraction, as well as the bonus tasks! Debugging the transformations and obj files ate up all the time I had.

Why JAVA? Several reasons! Most importantly, JAVA is the language I have most experience with. It runs on virtually every machine, and provides built-in XML, Image IO and Unit testing.