TEACHING COMPUTER GRAPHICS WITH JAVA 3D

To present and explore topics in computer graphics traditional teaching methodologies and tools are not sufficient. An approach is needed which provides students with an easy to use programming environment and which enables them to build their own interactive graphic applications. In this paper we present our experiences with the Java 3D API in a computer graphics course on modeling and simulation. We present the applications used in the practical exercises during the course. It is shown how students can learn computer graphic algorithms and deepen their understanding of nowadays 3D programming concepts at the same time.