Mike Jacobs

The Star Trek universe has inspired many technology ideas but I'm disappointed I don't have a transporter yet. One Star Trek technology that has been available for sometime is the particle system. No, this is not an exotic propulsion system for your flying car. The particle system was invented to animate the Genesis effect in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. While the Genesis device was used to transform a barren planet into one full of life, we can adopt this technology for more modest effects in Java3D. In the Beginning In previous articles, we've focused on creating planetary surfaces with Java3D. One challenging area of graphics programming is rendering irregular or ill-defined objects like clouds, smoke, or fireworks. William Reeves faced that challenge when Lucasfi... (more)

Casting Perlin's Movie Magic in Java3D

Reach behind your television and yank the cable out of the wall. Do you hear that noise? Not the kids screaming about their movie. Look at the screen. What you see is white noise: random bits of white, black and gray changing constantly. What does this have to do with movie magic or Java3D? What if a spell could conjure roaring fires, fluffy clouds, rippling water, naturally grained wood... (more)

Bringing Mars Down to Earth with Java3D

You've probably seen the breathtaking photographs of the surface of Mars from the rovers Spirit and Opportunity. You've also seen the amazing high-altitude photographs taken from satellites orbiting Mars. But let's face it, the rovers must land on flat, boring areas and the satellites are too high above the interesting places like canyons and craters. What is an Earth-bound Java programm... (more)

Cover Story: When Mars Is Too Big to Download

Related Links: Bringing Mars Down to Earth with Java3D In my previous article ("Bringing Mars Down to Earth with Java3D," JDJ, Vol. 9, issue 6), readers were expected to download hundreds of megabytes of Mars data to enjoy the Java3D example. This requirement challenged even the cable modem bunch ambitious enough to get the source code in the first place. This time it's definitely differen... (more)