Last year I obtained my master degree in Informational Technology, Audio-Video and Imaging at INP Toulouse, ENSEEIHT. Right after the presentation of my master work (which, by the way, I posted on this blog, the video), I had an offer to work during the summer on a project for a french painter Christian de Cambiaire.
Christian de Cambiaire is an artist that uses a software, created in 2002 on his initiative, to generate random images by moving some rectangles on a Panel using java.awt.Graphics. The software was getting old, and Christian wanted to make some improvements on it, especially to add the third dimension.
Christian addressed himself to my master degree research director, Jean-Pierre Jessel, who gave me the opportunity to participate to.
At the beginning, my task was to do a research on the possible solutions to add a third dimension to a Java 2D software. The main problem was that the software was pretty simple, apart from the specific movement logic of the rectangles on the screen. All the movements were done using mathematical equations implemented by hand.
The first idea was to use OpenGL and C++, but because the original software was in Java, I thought it will be smarter to search for something in Java, and anyway, in C++ it would have been more difficult. After some research, I ended with the conclusion that JMonkeyEngine 3 is the best game engine I can use to achieve what I want. I stopped myself to a game engine because it can speed up development time and introduce new possibilities for improvements of the software based on the JME3 SDK, and in my case this was what I needed.
Below are the videos of the two versions of Explorer software. First one is the video of the old 2D version, and below it is the one that I created in 3D. If you're interested in the software, feel free to contact Christian de Cambiaire.
The old 2D version:
The 3D version created by me for Christian de Cambiaire and in collaboration with Jean-Pierre Jessel, in JME3:
The software is using JME3, java swing, and can be run in fullscreen. Has also a debug mode, in which you can check FPS, and supports command line arguments to launch automatically from CD, when inserted into CD-ROM.
For any information on the software please contact Christian de Cambiaire, because he's the copyright holder.
