The main project for Computer Graphics II was to write a ray tracer that supported multiple geometric shapes that could be rendered, multiple shading and lighting models, and multi-sampling for a smoother and more high-fidelity image. As a graduate student, additional functionality was required for the project. I decided to replace the standard pinhole camera with a more realistic camera model, as well as distributing the rendering processes across multiple networked computers.
Tag Archives: Java
DirectJ adds support for DirectX 9 in Java. The design is meant to be as close to the original C/C++ API as possible. This is to ensure ease of use for current DirectX 9 developers to switch between the original and the Java implementation. Currently, only Windows is supported, but with projects such as Wine, other Unix based platforms could use the API.
I don’t know why I haven’t gotten into this earlier. Here are some of the things I’ve learned while tinkering around.
Don’t use static variables.
The tutorials I’ve read say to use static final variables in your code for readability. I totally agree with this, except for the part about declaring the variables static. When you declare a static variable, the name of the variable gets stored in the string pool in the header. Even if it’s final. And even if it’s private. That means that every one of the static variables’ names is spelled out in modified-utf8 in the header. There goes your class size, exploding out of proportion.
Read More »