Graphics

August 14th, 2008

So, this semester at uni I’m doing a subject called Computer Graphics. I’ve been looking forward to it, because it presents a new kind of challenge, completely different to anything that I’ve been doing before, but it’s very fun and interesting. I knew quite a few people who were doing it last year, and I always enjoyed looking at things they’d been working on.

Well, I’m just finishing up my first practical exercise, and it has been really fun. The core of the practical is reasonably simple (once you know what you’re doing) but several ‘extensions’ are listed, and either one of those extensions or one of your own is required, if you want full marks.

The core of the exercise was drawing 2 dimensional ‘reptiles’ – Shapes which can be formed by drawing 4 smaller versions of itself. A slightly boring example would be a square – you can make a square by drawing four smaller squares. Each of those 4 smaller versions could then be filled with 4 smaller versions, potentially creating an infinite fractal-like pattern. Actually, one of the things we had to draw, was the Sierpinski Triangle, shown on the fractal page.

Well, for an extension, I decided to try my hand at a 3D version of the Sieprinski Triangle. I only just now learned from Wikipedia that it is called a Tetrix. I wanted to share it with you, because it’s pretty. It looks better when it’s moving, but I can’t capture a video for you at the moment (believe me, I’ve tried!) *EDIT* – Youtube video embedded below. Enjoy!

 

Oh, and Liv is like awesome. Or something…

3 Responses to “Graphics”

  1. Peteron 03 Sep 2008 at 10:05 pm

    Interesting stuff.

    Did you use OpenGL and glut? or are you doing the Windows programming as well?

    Sadly, non-IT people don’t tend to appreciate the ‘finer’ detail.

  2. dallinon 04 Sep 2008 at 4:10 pm

    Yeah, OpenGL and GLUT. For the assignment I didn’t use a perspective camera because I didn’t have time. I tried a few things, but didn’t have the time or patience at the time to make it work. Now that I understand it a bit more, I have implemented the perspective camera, and it looks heaps better! When I get a chance, I’ll make a new video.

    Oh, and for anyone who’s interested, I used Camstudio to make the video. It does a good job and it’s free! http://www.camstudio.org

    Cheers,
    Dallin

  3. [...] talked before about my Computer Graphics course. All of my exams are done now for this year, so I thought [...]

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