Message #414

From: Melinda Green <melinda@superliminal.com>
Subject: Re: [MC4D] On Rendering the Elusive 8th "Face" of the 4D Puzzle
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:20:50 -0700

Roice Nelson wrote:
>
> Fair enough, it wouldn’t hurt to have the "box with lid off" option
> (and the additional option Alex suggested with altered sticker-shrink
> and face-grow for the out face). Those like me who don’t prefer it
> for their own personal aesthetic reasons simply don’t have to turn it
> on. Good points about the artificial nature of the shrink settings
> too. As Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as
> possible, but not simpler." I guess we just have different opinions
> on where to draw the line in this case. Ultimately, I think it is
> fair for the implementer to impose their own preference, especially
> when the source code is available for modification to anyone who would
> like to alter it otherwise.
>
Very well said, Roice. Einstein was talking about the art of modeling
and in this I agree completely. I’m also trying to balance my own sense
of modeling elegance with the desires of the users. In the end of course
I’ll implement what I feel motivated to do, but as you point out, so can
anyone else. I’m not against implementing methods of showing the
invisible faces. (Note that we’re not just talking about a single face
but possibly several.) I would just be much more interested in other
designs. My favorite idea would be to model a 3D mirror in 4-space and
to render the projected view of the back of the puzzle where it would
correctly project inside the 3D box that would be the edges of the
mirror cube. This would be analogous to solving a 3D cube while standing
in front of a mirror. There would only be the one 4D->3D projection and
that would preserve the elegance of the model for me.

Still another view that I’d be OK with would be to display two different
projections of the puzzle in separate views. The only difference is that
in each view the 4D eye point would view the puzzle from opposite
directions. It should be possible to perform all the normal operations
in either view.

-Melinda