A simple 3D engine in Java

Hi all,

At our institution, we are using Alice in our pre-cs course to provide a gentle introduction to programming. It is working out really well and students are enjoying themselves (just have to work around some of the bugs, small annoyance but nothing too serious).

For our follow-up CS1 course, it would be a real let down to go back to console type programming. I have always wanted to do some 3D programming with the first year students so I have created a very simple 3D engine using the lwjgl library. This engine is heavily inspired by Alice (except you have to type everything in Java) and has an optional module to integrate with the BlueJ IDE to provide simple object visualization.

The env3d engine is open source and is being actively maintained by myself. You can find it at http://env3d.sourceforge.net.

I have just finished teaching my first batch of students with env3d and the results are really positive. You can check out some project videos on the env3d website or visit our department's web page.

So if you are looking for a simple 3D engine in Java (and don't want to go with the Java 3D library), you may want to give env3d a shot.

Jason