虛擬實境CAVE軟體的模組化開發方式

Abstract

傳統的虛擬實境CAVE軟體開發方式，是以C或C++程式語言撰寫主結構，再以OpenGL或是DirectX為顯示函式庫，加上CAVELib等函式庫而成，開發者須具備程式設計背景並精通3D電腦繪圖的原理，才有能力開發及維護CAVE軟體，而此種開發方式對於非程式設計背景的建築設計者，則有相當的難度。 近年來由於網際網路以及多媒體的風行，使得各類相關應用軟體大量出現，傳統的撰寫程式語言的開發速度已經不符需求，於是便出現了整合式的開發套件，這些多媒體開發套件具有對多媒體檔案的廣泛支援，以及友善的圖形化整合環境，讓開發者可以不必撰寫程式語言來製作多媒體應用軟體，這些套件也進一步提供專屬的程式語言，讓進階的開發者擴充其功能。 本研究從建築設計的應用領域出發，利用設計者較熟悉的圖形化介面3D內容開發軟體，做出虛擬實境CAVE所需的同步顯示功能，並將之模組化，讓不具撰寫程式經驗的設計者能直接運用，如此便能讓設計者專注於內容的創作，而不會受制於技術上的門檻。

The conventional way of making virtual-reality CAVE display software is to build a main structure using C or C++ codes and to apply some function libraries (OpenGL, CAVELib, etc.) to control the display system of CAVE. Developers who want to make it up must have studied in computer science and are great at computer graphics programming. Because of the high threshold of developing CAVE software, it is difficult for architecture designers to do so. In recent years, due to the growth of the complexity and quantity of multimedia file formats, 3D multimedia applications become more time-consuming for conventional development with C/C++ programming. In order to make them easier and faster for developers to build, several multimedia development tool kits were produced. These tool kits not only have completely support for various multimedia file formats, but also have friendly user interfaces. With these tool kits, developing multimedia applications is much like composing a movie. Developers can build an application without writing any code. Moreover, these tool kits also provide their own scripting languages for advanced uses. The purpose of this research is to lower the threshold of developing CAVE applications for architectural designers. By using a multimedia development tool kit called Director, this research built a modular function, which provides the core functions of CAVE such as display-synchronization, real-time walk through and section making. This modular function helps designers to focus on the creation of contents instead of technical problems.