Notes for Wednesday May 5 -- implicit surfaces part 2

Implicit surfaces, continued

We did a deeper dive into implicit surfaces, showing how you can create and then blend together shapes other than spheres. In particular, we showed how you can create spheres, cylinders and cubes, and also how you can do arbitraray matrix transformations on the implicit functions that create the corresponding shapes.

We also talked about how you can blend together other properties, such as color.

We ended up with working code, which you can build upon and/or modify for your own projects. That code is here in implicit.zip.

At the end of class we watched the classic "kitchen scene" from Jurassic Park

Because so many students expressed interest in doing a final project using implicit surfaces, I have made available for you a more advanced version of the implicit surfaces software, which you can build upon for your final project if you wish.

This version allows you to create an implicit mesh surface, and then animate that surface afterward as a flexible rubber-like shape, just by animating the matrices of its component primitive shapes.

Also, there is no longer a limit of six component shapes, so you can have a lot more artistic freedom.

All the software you need, including a demo that shows how it works, is downloadable from blobby.zip

Homework for Wednesday May 12

As soon as you can, please email me a description of your final project, as we discussed in class. I will need to sign off on your project by email, to make sure you are not taking on too much or too little.

For your final exam, you will be presenting your final project in class next week. Since we will have approximately 70 minutes of class time, your presentation should be no longer than 70/20 or 3.5 minutes.

You should be prepared to:

  1. tell us what motivated you to choose this project
  2. describe your contribution/innovation
  3. show your cool demo
  4. tell us how you might take this further in future work