07 January 2011

Started the day by reformatting the MacBook Pro and installing Windows 7. There were some problems with the version of Windows 7 being installed previously. Got all the necessary installations done before lunch.

Zac and I started working on adding lighting to our models, and to change the center of the models. Lighting was easy, since we have already done it before. Changing of the center, however, was the problem. We did some research and what we had to do was the change the pivot of the models in 3DS Max. We tried out many ways, but the POD models that we export from the scene still uses the default pivot.

We spent the rest of the day trying to solve this issue, but to no avail. However, I did manage to find an alternative online, which is to manipulate the transformations in coding to transform on a specified pivot. What was suggested was to first translate the object to -P, where P is the pivot point, do the necessary transformations, then translate the object to P. Wondering if this would work, and there definitely are complications. How do we define the pivot point in our program? We would have to discuss this issue of pivot points with Kevin next week.

06 January 2011

Kevin came over today and looked at our progress. He did some testing and listed down a few things for us to fix.

- Dynamic model list creation

- Reset clipping

- Modify clipping

- Switch off for labels

We managed to get those fixed, and would be working on the following tomorrow:

- Add lighting for multi-node model

- Centre of rotation should be the centre of the object

- Compute explode radius based on z near

04 January 2011

Took another approach to implement the labels after having discussed with Kevin. We decided to forgo the drawing of lines and have the labels placed onto the nodes when being selected by the user.

We got the labeling for touching individual nodes done, but there are still some issues for showing all labels at the same time. When displaying all labels, the positioning depends heavily on the translation values of the nodes. Somehow, we are still unable to get the labels' position correctly for this.

Come to think of it, time really flies. In just about 7 weeks, our internship here would come to an end. Looking forward to working here as a temp staff till my enlistment, if possible. It has been quite a while since I received my mid SIP feedback from Kevin. I have been working actively, trying to improve myself. I hope that this would deserve me better grades for my SIP, and more importantly, heeding the feedback given by Kevin would definitely benefit me greatly in the future.

03 January 2011

New year, new start. Happy 2011 everyone! :D

Started working on the labeling of nodes today. Zac and I discussed on what to do and did some research on how people out there are doing the drawing of lines and labels.

Then, we decided to come up with the algorithm for the placement of the labels first, before we start drawing the lines. We modified the circle algorithm that Zac has used previously for the exploding of nodes. This algorithm sets an array that contains objects of NodeLabels.

Kevin came in at the end of the day and gave us some suggestions on how to get this done. We would be putting his suggestions into use tomorrow.