Draw3D

A Java Tool for 3D graphs, 3D plotting and 3D drawing

Bill Edison, 2016

What is Draw3D?
Draw3D is a 3D drawing package in Java. It gives you three axes and the ability to draw all kinds of shapes, lines, and such. There are two modes of using it:

As a library. You can write code within a Draw3D example to draw 3D objects. See this example for a simple program that draws a line, a sphere and an arrow. More examples are in ASampler.java.
As an application. You can run Draw3D as a command-line application that brings up its GUI. Then, you can interact with its menu to do various things. For example, Draw3D can load an "algorithm" that you can write to do animation. To run Draw3D in this manner type java org.edisonwj.draw3d.Draw3D at the command-line. See this example for a simple program that performs an animation.

Where do I get it and how do I install?
With the advent of Java-11, this has become a bit more complicated. See below.

What documentation is available?
You can browse

A simple help file in plain text.
The javadoc for Draw3D.
AlgorithmDemo.java that shows how you can write code as an algorithm that's uploaded by Draw3D (for the purpose of animation).

What do I need to know for linear algebra?
The linear algebra examples in the modules are fully self-contained. All you need is to get the jar file into your CLASSPATH. Thus, you don't need to read the help file above, nor do you need the documentation. They are here for other projects and courses. (This is the only public webpage for Draw3D.)

Who is Bill Edison?
Bill is a former PhD student of mine, with a long and successful career in software in the DC area, and with many different intellectual interests including the intersection of math and computer science. When I lamented the lack of a solid and yet simple 3D package for Java-based courses, he very graciously volunteered hours and hours of his time to develop Draw3D.

Installing Draw3D

Create a directory called draw3d off of your Desktop (Finder or Windows Explorer).

Download draw3d.jar and put that in this directory.

Add draw3d.jar to your CLASSPATH.

If you are using Java-8, Java-9 or Java-10, you can use Draw3D now. However, Java-11 and higher does NOT include JavaFX, which needs installation (see below).

Installing and using JavaFX with Java-11 and higher

Note: the instructions below are for Mac/Linux (you'll need to modify for Windows)

Go to the JavaFX website and download the appropriate (Mac or Windows) version of the JavaFX SDK.

If you cannot find the link, try this page. You will end up downloading a zip file.

Save this zip file in the draw3d folder you made earlier, and un-zip.

On Mac, you should see something like this:

Thus, there is a lib folder that will have a bunch of jar files. You'll need to add this folder to CLASSPATH.

For example, suppose this folder is located (for user Alice) at

   /Users/alice/Desktop/draw3d/javafx-sdk-11.0.2/lib

then you would add that to your CLASSPATH. For example, on Mac, you would edit your .profile (older macs using bash) or .zshrc (newer macs using z-shell) and add

  export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:/Users/alice/Desktop/draw3d/javafx-sdk-11.0.2/lib

NOTE: on Windows, you refer to an environment variable by surrounding the variable with %, as in:

  %CLASSPATH%C:\Users\alice\Desktop\draw3d\javafx-sdk-11.0.2\lib

Most often, you simply list all the paths separated by semicolons (without the %CLASSPATH% part)

Next, as it turns out, JavaFX needs its own environment variable called PATH_TO_FX, which needs to point to the same thing:

  export PATH_TO_FX=/Users/alice/Desktop/draw3d/javafx-sdk-11.0.2/lib

For mac users, this needs to be in your .profile (older macs using bash) or .zshrc (newer macs using z-shell). Windows users add environment variables with a GUI.

Now create new Terminal windows to test by typing echo $CLASSPATH at the commandline. You should see both this library and the full path to the draw3d.jar file.

Download TestDraw3D.java into the testdir folder you've already made.

Compile (but do not execute) the file. It should compile since draw3d.jar is in your CLASSPATH.
NOTE: You might need the --module-path additional parameters to javac as shown below for java.

However, execution may not work because of a new requirement from Java-11 onwards: the use of Java modules.

At the command line type:

java --module-path $PATH_TO_FX TestDraw3D

Or if that did not work

java --module-path $PATH_TO_FX --add-modules javafx.controls TestDraw3D

For compilation:

javac --module-path $PATH_TO_FX --add-modules javafx.controls TestDraw3D.java

NOTE: on Windows, the equivalent commands are:

javac --module-path %PATH_TO_FX% --add-modules javafx.controls TestDraw3D.java

and

java --module-path %PATH_TO_FX% --add-modules javafx.controls TestDraw3D

Some students have reported that they need to type

java -cp .\ --module-path %PATH_TO_FX% --add-modules javafx.controls TestDraw3D

You can test the JavaFX install just by itself (without Draw3D) with the HelloFX.java provided by JavaFX.