Re: The random colour changing bug

• To: Andrew Donaldson <A.Donaldson@xxxxxxxxxx>
• Subject: Re: The random colour changing bug
• From: Bill Hibbard <billh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:31:06 -0600 (CST)

Hi Andrew,

>    I tried changing the BoundingSphere to MAX_VALUE, POSITIVE_INFINITY,
> -1.0, 0.0 and 1.0, all of which produced no noticeable difference.

Too bad, but that's what I figured.

>    We have also now tested on:
> - Windows 2000, Matrix G450, Java 1.4.2_05, Java3D 1.3.1 OpenGL
> - RedHat Enterprise WS4, ATI Radeon X600, Java 1.4.2_09, Java3D 1.3.1
>    which also produce the fault.
>
>    Our previous testing was all with Nvidia cards, all of which had the
> fault.
>
>    It is good to see it happening with Nvidia, ATI and Matrox OpenGL
> implementations on both windows and linux.

Yes, but remember we have seen an absence of the problem
on a variety of systems:
  my Windows NT, JDK 1.2, ATI Rage graphics
  Don Murray's IBM Laptop with ATI Radeon Mobility (Linux?)
  Tom Rink's Java3D 1.3.2 on a Linux box with an nVidia card
As Don says, its probably related to the OpenGL driver.

>    This problem is affecting our production of Tropical Cyclone
> warning graphics, which can be issued at any time now that we are in
> the cyclone season here.  Any help fixing it is appreciated.

Very sorry to hera about that.

>    I will look into what is involved in removing the scalar maps,
> I expect it won't be fun :)

Yes, I think Curtis's observation that it occurs with
ConstantMaps but not with ScalarMaps to RGB may be a key
to finding a work-around. There must be some difference
between the GeometryArray or Appearance produced for
these two cases. I dug into this a bit but didn't find
the difference. I recall that you had some folks at BOM
who could dig into this Java3D level of stuff. Please
keep us informed and we will try to advise.

Cheers,
Bill

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: The random colour changing bug
    • From: Bill Hibbard

• References:
  • Re: The random colour changing bug
    • From: Andrew Donaldson