CPSC 4050 / 6050

Spring 2014

Textured OBJ Viewer

Homework Assignment 5

Due: Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Problem Description:

This time you will upgrade your raytracer so that it can handle more complex polygonal models from a model description (obj) file, and render the models as shaded solids. Your program should be able to read a simplified .obj file describing the model to be rendered, and any corresponding .mtl file. You should be able to render the model from various points of view using your movable camera, and you should be able to light the scene with various lights. Use your aesthetic judgement and experimentation to choose a good lighting setup. Try to make some good looking images to turn in with your code.

To assist you with this assignment, I have provided an obj/mtl file loader that you can use as a starting point for your work.

Basic Requirements:

Your program should be named objtrace. The program should have the following command line format:

objtrace model.obj [nrays] [imagefilename]

The first required command line parameter is the path to an object (.obj) file which contains a description of the model to be rendered. The nrays parameter is optional. It should specify the number of rays per pixel to use for antialising, with a default value of 1 if the parameter is not included. The imagefilename is also optional, but if it is present, pressing the w key should cause the currently rendered image to be saved.

I have supplied models of a cube, a tetrahedron, a mug and a skeleton that you can use. No doubt you can find lots of other models on the web, or ask your friends in the DPA program or anyone who uses Blender, 3DS Max or Maya to save a model for you in .obj format.

Your .obj file reader must be able to minimally handle the following .obj line types:

v x y z
vn dx dy dz
vt u v

f v1 v2 .... vn
f v1/t1 v2/t2 .... vn/tn
f v1//n1 v2//n2 .... vn//nn
f v1/t1/n1 v2/t2/n2 .... vn/tn/nn

mtllib materiallibname.mtl
usemtl materialname


When reading the .mtl file to define materials, your reader must be able to handle the following .mtl line types:

newmtl materialname

Ka r g b
Kd r g b
Ks r g b
Ns exponent

d alpha

map_Kd imagefilename

Your program can simply ignore any other line type encountered in the .obj or .mtl files.

The minimal requirements for the program are to:

  1. read any .obj and .mtl files that are correctly formatted, and build a complete data structure representing the polygonal object that was loaded (note, you can use my code, which already does all of this for you)
  2. be capable of using either orthographic or perspective viewing (a "camera.txt" file should specifiy all the camera parameters, including which projection system to use)
  3. display the model properly lit and shaded, using the material properties from the .mtl file
  4. if surface normals are provided for the vertices of a model, use the Phong approach to normal interpolation to produce a smoothly shaded image
  5. display the model using any texture maps that were provided with the .mtl file
  6. use an axis aligned bounding box to accelerate rendering of your polygonal model.

Advanced Extensions:

  1. Build and use a BIH Tree acceleration structure to render your polygonal model.

General:

Please write the program in C++ , using OpenGL and GLUT graphics routines for the display. Make sure to put a header in each file of your code that gives a description of the program or object, your name, the date, and instructions on how it is used. Please turn in at least two different images you have made with your renderer.