Gustav Rydstedt
CS 148 - Winter 2007
"Animating a Clock Escapement"
In order to complete this assignment you'll have to understand the STTransform class. Describe libST's representation of a transform and compare it's flexibility to an alternative representation, such as the 4x4 matrix representation Pat discussed in class. For example, can you name a type of transformation that STTransform cannot represent. Describe the order that the STSceneNode class performs the various rotate/scale/translate transforms when drawing the scene (ie. what is the first operation performed on the shapes vertices? what is the second? third?). Are there other orderings that would produce the same result?
Note that graphical objects, such as instances of the STImage and STShape class are not scene graph nodes (but they can be contained within STSceneNodes). By inspecting the implementation of STSceneNode, determine if it permissable to add the same object to the scene multiple times (Eg. Can multiple scene nodes contain the same shape object)? Why would one want to do this?
Assume you had an STSceneNode n, and a STShape s. How would you add this shape as the first child node of n? How would you add it as the last child node of n?
The STImage::read() method doesn't read data off disk, it reads it from the OpenGL framebuffer. The method takes 4 integer arguments. Describe the meaning of these arguments. You will call this method as part of the required code for this assignment. How are the values you pass to STImage::read() determined in clock.cpp?