PhET Progress Report

Sam Reid

May 14, 2009

An online version of this report is available here.

Here's a pie chart representation of the time distribution.

JMonkeyEngine

· Set up framework for using 3D graphics + physics engines within phet sims

· Includes native code for Mac, Linux, PC

· Works in Web Start (with permission request) and as standalone JAR

· Embed JMonkeyEngine within a Swing component for rendering and input handling

· Reduced JAR size from 30.5M to about 5.2M

· Prototype here

· Still needs:

1. Cleanup

2. Will Swing mouse inversion impact other parts of the scene graph interaction?

3. High level primitives for simplified use in phet sims

4. Testing on several platforms

1. Investigate JMEDesktop on Mac, or other ways of embedding interactive Piccolo in the play area

2. Why is performance poor on Jonathan's machine?

3. Need to add source and binaries for jmonkeyengine and jmephysics to svn; currently located here

4. JB: Make sure security all-permissions works properly in the installer JNLP generation

5. Do we need binaries for 64-bit PC?

6. See ticket for details

Radioactive Dating Game

· Collaborate with John on graphics, coordinate frames and transforms

Misc

· Ramp: minor bugfixes

· Build Process: update to 1.5

· Ladybug Motion 2D: posted on main site

Upcoming Work

· Continue prototyping for density sim

· Continue integrating JMonkeyEngine with PhET build process and phetcommon

· Discuss 1/r^2 sim with Wendy

· Remove buffering from PSwing for rendering improvements, speed improvements and to avoid mac rendering problems

· Ramp Simulation, fixes and updates, including charts

· For details, See ticket report "Sam R: Report" here