Java™ Media APIs: Cross-Platform Imaging, Media, and Visualization

Using 3D Geometry

Creating geometry is usually the most frustrating part of developing a 3D scene. Java 3D provides utilities for making basic geometric elements (for example, the Box used in our examples so far) and many scenes can be developed using these supplied elements. It is recommended that the beginning Java 3D programmer begin with these and not get too bogged down laying out vertices and faces (although doing so is enlightening). A brief summary of the geometry classes follows, but before that we should examine the basic elements of developing geometry in, or as will be seen shortly, for Java 3D.

The reason we emphasize creating geometry for Java 3D is that it is possible and sometimes highly desirable to use a third-party package ...