Getting Started

Xj3D is a project that is written in the Java language. Therefore, the first item of getting starting is making sure you have the right environment ready to go. Once you have gotten this set up, you may wish to see how to use Xj3D in your application development. If so, head over to the Tutorials section of the site.

System Requirements

Hardware and software both play an important role in making sure you can run what we've got. Although we cater for devices from mobile phones to CAVEs, we do have certain limitations. Read the requirements page for more information.

Download options

Our code and downloads come in a number of forms and can be roughly grouped into the following categories:

Never used Java before

If you have never used a Java application or product before, then we have a full installer. This gives you everything you need to get running. It will include a Java runtime environment, the 3D graphics libraries in use as well as all the lower-level dependencies that our application makes use of.

Have Java installed, only want to run the code

In this case you have at least a Java environment installed and you've run Java code before. You are not interested in trying to compile Xj3D, you just want to use it. Probably you are an end developer that would like to use Xj3D as a standalone library in another application. Our minimal installer provides just the Xj3D code and the third-party libraries it is dependent on. There are no other environments included. So, for example, if you didn't have Java3D installed, this installer would not fix that issue for you.

Can live with development code. Has my bug been fixed yet?

You're a developer and need to keep reasonable track of the code and new features. There's a node you've been waiting to have implemented or a fairly crucial bug that you want fixed. The development releases are for you. These are somewhat tested snapshots of the development at points between releases. These are typically just a Zip file containing all the JARS of the current codebase.

I like to live dangerously

If you really want to track every change (and mistake!) we make, then using the CVS repository is for you. With CVS, you get all our updates as we make them but you have to follow a lot of special rules in how your environment is set up and how to compile the code. In addition we also recommend you sign up for the separate mailing list that has the CVS update notification messages. These are useful for tracking exactly when changes are made and what was changed.

Post-Installation

Once the toolkit is installed on your machine, you will probably want to do something with it. As a formal project, Xj3D currently does not have any applications associated with it. It's current status is as a toolkit, which you then use within your own application code. As part of providing the toolkit we do provide a number of simplistic demonstration applications. These are provided in source form in the examples directory. These demo applications are used to show of one or more particular APIs or how to use individual components of the toolkit. The toolkit is extremely flexible and there are many different ways you could put it together.

examples/browser Here you will find a couple of programs that show you how to construct a standalone browser application.

examples/loader Here you will find an application that illustrates using Xj3D as a file Loader for Java3D.