Teaching 3D modeling and simulation
Don Brutzman · 2002
Two classes of graduate students learning 3D graphics and analytic simulation at the Naval Postgraduate School modeled the three_dimensional (3D) shape, structure, imagery and motion behaviors of plants and animals in the kelp forest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Our intended audience includes educators and students of all ages, scientific users interested in composing models in a 3D Web environment, and the general public. The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) proved to be an excellent medium for capturing diverse models, composing multiple student efforts, and publishing dynamic results publicly on the Web. By focusing on thoroughly modeling a controlled environment, we produced an exemplar 3D graphics site for modeling larger and more sophisticated underwater domains. This project was successfully demonstrated to numerous new users, including 1000 people during the 1998 National Ocean Fair in Monterey. Recent results include scene translation to the Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics specification, using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) for scene-graph encoding. Overall, this project serves as an interesting case study on teaching contemporary computer graphics to university students with a wide range of backgrounds.