3D figure generator

hi all

i want to create an application that allows the user to select 3D figures and dynamically combine them to create unique scenes and save it in n3d format. is app will require more API’s or frameworks other than OpenGL.
please tell me any material regarding this type of app.

thanx
keen

First, this post is way off topic, second, are you sure you know what you’re up against?

If you, by your almost poetic desctiption, mean a modelling program, it’s a very difficult project. Tried it. Make sure you have some experience with prorgamming and opengl before trying to make one.

But don’t let me get you down, it’s an extremely educative project since you have to use such a wide variety of techniques. Your problems will include:

-Window handling (easy)
-User interaction handling (easy)
-Undo/redo systems, clipboard and such (not quite so easy)
-Rendering algorithms (easy)
-Geometry generation and modification algorithms (from easy to very hard)
-Coping with huge amounts of data (hard)
-Usability issues (hard, at least)

So good luck with that,

-Ilkka

Sounds like you are talking about a scene construction program using stock models of some sort, not a full blown modelling program.

Perhaps you should use a higher level library like Open Scene Graph instead of OpenGL. They have very easy to use model loaders already written. You make one or two function calls and get a C++ class that contains a model, you can then move it around and draw it without worrying about the details of what’s in the file or most of the rendering. Many different file formats are supported. This is the sort of thing that scene graphs excell at. You could have something up and running inside a day if you use their sample code.
http://www.openscenegraph.org

It’s free, open source, cross platform, calls OpenGL (and you can make your own OpenGL calls) and really is an industrial strength scene graph used on real world professional projects.

[This message has been edited by dorbie (edited 01-10-2003).]