A Geometric Modeling and Animation System for Virtual Reality

Very few virtual environment design tools have been developed for non-programmers. Most non-programmers rely on programmers to produce their environments, or produce static environments using traditional geometrical modelers. Non-programmers, including artists and designers, have a lot to contribute to the development of virtual environments. In addition, tools developed to assist this user group will also beneet other virtual environment developers. A highly interactive 3D geometry modeling system and animation editor (JDCAD+) is presented in this paper. The motivation behind this project is to develop interactive tools for creating animated objects and importing them into virtual environments. Without such tools, creating animated objects requires coding the geometry and behavior of the object manually. Such models are usually very time consuming to code and lack detail. Coding behaviors for animation can also be very diicult due to complicated equations of motion that need to be solved. Using key frame animation has resulted in faster and easier behavior generation.