As part of an advanced graphics rendering course at Cal Poly, we developed an object oriented ray tracer from the ground up. This one is written for Unix/Linux and X-Windows although it easily translates to any other platform as the only function call needed is one to color a specified pixel on screen. Here are a serious of screenshots from the progressive development of the ray tracer:

The first assignment. Ray trace a sphere with ambient light and one point light in the scene.

The second assignment. The ray tracer must now be object oriented with multiple spheres of different colors and sizes. Objects now cast shadows and the scene includes multiple point light sources.

The third assignment. The ray tracer now has two additional objects, a board (or plane) and ellipsoid. A new texture that creates a checkerboard pattern on a surface also exists. The most impacting additions though are the additions of reflection and soft highlighting. This allowed me to easily create a mirrored texture.

The fourth assignment. The ray tracer now has an additional object which is a 5 sided prism. It also now supports solid textures which is the marble texture applied to the 5 sided prism. A solid texture differs from the previous textures in that you must create a lattice that stores the values of the texture, and then interpolate the coloring based on where the object is in the lattice. In a sense, the object is colored as if it were cut out of the material which is a lot different then the previous textures in the way they're handled (much simpler).

The fifth and last assignment. Here the objective is to create a fairly non-trivial scene that uses compound objects. Compound objects are those that take several simpler objects and add or subtract them from one another to create a more complicated object. Notice the can which is essentially a cylinder, with a smaller cylinder cutting out the interior of the can while an ellipse cuts out the small hole. The top rim of the can is again made by subtracting another cylinder from the top of it. Careful alignment creates a decent looking can.

My Senior Project. A Microsoft DirectX based 3d version of the classic coin-op Space Invaders. I wanted to do something challenging that was a complete project from start to finish using an unknown API. Go here for my senior project journal and additional information/screen shots on how it went..

This Java-based internet stock portfolio tracker was developed as a result of working with fellow students in a software engineering course at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. It allows a user to create portfolios and store stocks in them for analysis and comparison. It creates graphs and reports many of the standard types of information typical of portfolio management software. It also pulls content off the internet to keep data and graphs up to date. E-mail me if you'd like to see it.

The first shot on the left shows two programs I created early in learning computer graphics. The leftmost one is simply a composition of various primitive objects (cylinders, spheres, and rectangles). It has one custom face set which is the trapezoidal shapes that make up the skate's chassis. The shot on the right shows the fractal landscape generator I wrote which takes a flat mesh and generates random fractal landscapes including coloring by height.

World War ][ is a BBS door game based on Milton Bradley's Axis and Allies strategic board game. Control one of the Axis or Allied powers, directing research, purchasing your weapons of war, and directing them against your opponents. Build everything from infantry to the mighty Battleships and Aircraft Carriers of World War 2. It is ANSi based and works similarly to the very popular Global Wars BBS door game but has much greater depth on all fronts. I developed this program by myself due to my interest in Milton Bradley's game and my dissatisfaction with the limitations of Global Wars (i.e. Risk). It was never quite finished (i.e. it is still buggy, but works) because my interest in completing it vanished when the internet popped up and BBS use dropped dramatically everywhere.

Job Searcher is a BBS door that allows the sysop to create a custom database of jobs available in any area. Users may then search through the database for jobs based on custom search criteria specified by them. Anyone offering jobs may add jobs to the database which don't appear until the sysop approves them for posting. This program was developed for a school to keep track of local jobs.

Orb Wars Map Maker is a utility I wrote for the Macintosh. Originally I became very involved playing Orb Wars which is a multiplayer game on GEnie online services. Back then it was possible to create a map for Orb Wars using a simple text editer but this was extremely tedious and involved using graph paper and spending many hours. As a project to learn Macintosh windows programming I decided to make a map making program that was as simple to use as any simple painting program. The program here is the result of my work It works extremely well and although it wasn't perfect I was very proud of the result.

Last updated 02/22/02