Re: OpenGL scenegraph

[Jan Ekholm <chakie@infa.abo.fi>]

On Sun, 5 Sep 1999, Steve Baker wrote:

>> Btw Steve, thanks for the nice docs on OpenGL you have on your site. I've
>> been reading a couple of them while trying to figure out how to properly
>> combine several rotations into one single rotation in order to avoid some
>> weird effects. Still struggling, so I had to write a Matrix class to try
>> out the theories in practise... :-)
>
>Matrices give people the hardest time.  The problem is that some people
>like to think in abstract numbers and others prefer to see 'pictures' of
>what's going on in their heads.   I'm definitely a visual thinker and
>I had the hardest time with matrices since all the books and teachers
>make them out to be black boxes containing 16 numbers. When I realised
>that you can think of matrices in that highly visual way, it was like
>a bolt of lightning.  So - I had to share that vision.

Ah, me too. I always sit with a lot of pens in my hands when I try to
vislualize what a rotation or similar performs. It's a miracle nobody has
got their eyes poked out yet...

>I get thanks from more people about that couple of pages of writing
>than for all the other FAQ's and freeware I've written put together.

That's the way it always goes. You end up getting credit for the stuff
you've spent least time creating.

---------------------+------------------------------------------------------
 Jan 'Chakie' Ekholm |    CS at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland
    Linux Inside     | I'm the blue screen of death, no-one hears you scream