Prentice - An Artist's Software Assistant

Overview

I've discontinued this effort as the free software Blender can do the job much better. However, it remains as an example of a Java GUI which displays an image with graphics.

A software assistant to help artists create pictures.

Vision

With recent improvements in computer power it is possible to use a desktop computer to aid artists in sketching and rendering pictures, saving them hours of toil.

As an amateur artist, I've often wished for a tool which can help me craft a scene from the imagination, relieving me of the drudgery of making preliminary sketches, laying out the perspective and shadows, and using photographs, props and clay models.

Prentice will be such an artistically knowlegable intelligent software agent.

Specifications

• Quick interactive rendering of a scene with wireframe models.
• Easy 3D editing of models, viewpoints, and illumination.
• Highly realistic rendering of a scene (maybe slow).
• Database of basic objects, shapes and textures (XML), easy to edit and import.
• Open source Java code of highest possible quality, easy to modify and port.
• Complete and clear technical documentation.

Planning

This is an ambitious project for one person doing it in his limited free time, so needs extremely careful planning.

Milestones

• Research the state-of-the-art in mathematics and algorithms of computer generated animation.
  • 100% Coordinate transforms, clipping, perspective.
  • photon mapping
  • NURB 3D spline surface mathematics.
  • 5% Raytracing and radiosity algorithms.
  • Research existing rendering engines.
  • Texture mapping algorithms.
  • Inverse kinematics and robotics.
  • Object and texture data structures and data compression.
  • Reconstruction of 3D objects from several 2D views.
• 60% Prototype GUI completed with initial set of buttons and controls in Java.
• 20% Drawing primitives, perspective and coordinate transforms, wireframe view of model.
• Database of 3D models with interactive editing and display.
• Spline surfaces with interactive control and approximate pseudocolor rendering.
• Illumination sources database added.
• Simple ray tracer working.
• Texture mapping working.
• Second development cycle starting with an imaginary scene...
• Polygon objects with interpolating surfaces.
• People puppets with inverse kinematics, and motion limits.
• Lattice deformation.
• Rendering in layers.
• Volumetric rendering, particle systems.
• Reconstructing 3D shapes from multiple 2D views.

Test Plan

• Test wire frame model perspective and clipping with measurements on still life objects.
• Test shadows by measurements on simple test objects in indoor and outdoor scenes.
• Render an indoor still life scene.
• Render an outdoor scene with people.

Configuration Management

Can be simple: frequent archiving of tested snapshots with versioning.

Software Architecture

Probably will be GUI objects derived from Java's basic ones, coordinate transform and projection objects, illumination objects, general purpose model objects/ file I/O and data conversion objects. Here's the preliminary software design and the Javadoc software documentation

Download

Source code is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. You will need to download each of the .c and .h source files below, compile and link them. For compiling and running, follow instructions below. Current version is 1.1

Click on the symbol to view and download the source files below.
Prentice.java	Top level program for Prentice. Creates the main and GUI threads. Constructs the application, frame, view, image, and model objects.
PrenticeConstants.java	Application wide constants.
DebugLog.java	Debug logging to file.
PrenticeModel.java	Graphical Model.
SwingWorker.java	My own simple implementation since SwingWorker is absent in Java SE 5. If you have Java SE 6, you don't need to include this.
ModelFileParser.java	Read and parse model files.
TransformMatrix.java	Matrix transformations including perspective.
PrenticeCanvas.java	Rendered image upon which we draw.
PrenticeFrame.java	Top level of the GUI: the frame which handles menus and buttons.
PrenticeView.java	Top level view within the frame containing the image and special buttons.
ScrollableImage.java	Container for the image, with scrollability.
FileAction.java	A class for opening a file.
PrenticePrint.java	A class for printing.
MouseHandler.java	Handles all mouse events.
makefile	Makefile for Unix or Windows/Cygwin.

Install and Run

1. First install the Java platform following instructions. Be sure to install NetBeans as it has a source level debugger.
2. Create the parent directory, C:/Sean/WebSite/Prentice on Windows PC systems, and /Users/Sean/WebSite/Prentice on Mac OS X.
3. Then create the following subdirectories,
   • /Project/SourceCode --- The CLASSPATH. It is the parent directory for the package directories.
   • /Project/SourceCode/Prentice --- Top level package named Prentice containing .java source code files.
   • /Project/SourceCode/Model --- The Model package containing the model.
   • /Project/SourceCode/View --- View package containing the view.
   • /Project/build --- Build files.
   • /Project/class --- The CLASS_DIR. All .class files for the packages go in subdirs here.
   • /Project/class/Model, ... --- Class files for the package Model.
   • /Project/data --- Data files.
   • /Project/doc --- Javadoc automatically generated html for classes/methods/fields.
4. Use the makefile to compile, generate documentation and run.

Here's how to compile and run by hand without using the makefile:

1. Set the Java classpath, on a Windows PC, in autoexec.bat or in Settings->System->Environment, modify set the CLASSPATH environment variable to CLASSPATH=%CLASSPATH%;C:/Sean/WebSite/Prentice/Project/SourceCode
2. Open up a new terminal window and do echo $CLASSPATH to check.
3. Go to the /build directory and type javac -g -d ../class -classpath ${CLASSPATH} ../SourceCode/Prentice/Prentice.java to compile the main program and all the other source files for debugging.
4. To run Prentice, go to the /build directory and type java -cp ../class Prentice.Prentice.
5. To create a JAR file, first cd to the CLASS_DIR. Remove the old jar file, rm -rf Prentice.jar. Create the new jar file, jar -cmfv manifest.txt Prentice.jar Prentice Model View Run using java -jar Prentice.jar

Copyright © 2005-2009 by Sean Erik O'Connor. All Rights Reserved.     last updated 01 Jan 09.