Processing: Creative Coding and Computational Art

Creating a custom cube
To begin to think about a cube, you need to think about the components of a cube. A
cube can be thought of in a number of ways: as a group of points defining the cube’s vertices,
sometimes referred to as a point cloud; as a wireframe, representing the lines connecting
the cube’s vertices; or as a solid, composed of polygonal sides or faces. In a more
advanced example, you might also look at different shading and surface material algorithms
to create a photorealistically textured cube. This section will begin with the creation
of a simple class that holds the three x, y, and z coordinates for each of the cube’s vertices.
The class will be named Point3D.
/*
Extremely simple class to
hold each 3D vertex
*/
class Point3D{
float x, y, z;
// constructors
Point3D(){
}
Point3D(float x, float y, float z){
this.x = x;
this.y = y;
this.z = z;
}
}
I hope this class looks self-explanatory. I’m using the class simply to group the three component
properties of each vertex. As a refresher, to create a Point3D object and then output
its component properties, you’d write the following:
void setup(){
Point3D p1 = new Point3D(-50, -50, -50);
println(p1.x + ", " + p1.y + ", " + p1.z);
}
/*
Extremely simple class to
hold each 3D vertex
*/
class Point3D{
float x, y, z;
// constructors
Point3D(){
}
3D
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