SharpThreads, Part 1

Graphics programming is the ultimate hell-fun type of programming.

Reasons: Its mathematical (so it makes me feel smart), and also is very functional and testable and neat. When I was young, graphics programming was all I did – so it taps into my very deepest instincts. Put it this way – when I was 11, I wasn’t coding up analytics module. I was making a freakin spinning sphere and a colony life sim thing!

So to intoduce this project, here is a link to the original cloth app I developed in 2004. In C++, and OpenGL, it was for a university paper:

Have a go, right click and play around. I think its pretty neat and the maths behind it is quite sound. Here is my original report, if you want to delve into the theory and practicalities involved.

Now I shall port it to WPF. Just so I learn some more WPF (for my potential new job, hopefully, all things going well), and also because my life is all web these days and I’m losing my mojo. And also, come on, SharpThreads is a genius name.

South right hemisphere

Not letting a holiday get in the way of a good interview, I met up with a company called Right Hemisphere while I was in Auckland this week. The plan being to work with them when I return to NZ next year. A simple and slightly daring plan. Some of the best plans are I suppose.

The jist of what they do seems to be centred around the management of 3D information, especially in the domain of industrial design. In essence it is about creating a seamless information flow from the design application (CAD etc) through to manufacturing and maintenance. Content management for helicopters, basically. I can’t help but feel I might become a real programmer again. No offence web world, but no real work gets done on a browser right?

To get the wheels spinning, I have now decided to embark on two different streams of work. First is Spatula, as outlined in my previous post. Secondly, I plan to get my WPF skills back up to semi-pro levels. My tactic is going to be to port an app I wrote at uni; a physical cloth simulation originally created in C++ and OpenGL. I don’t think I will change too much – probably just make the cloth itself directly manipulable and to utilise nice UI elements to set the various force parameters.

Check out here for my original code. Amazing to think I used to actually kind of know maths and stuff. There is blimmin matrix multiplication and discreet integration in there by heck.

Ooh almost forgot, blogs are meant to be opinionated in some way. In that case, I would like to say my home country is more beautiful than your home country. See the attached views out my plane window as proof.