SpinMass

Spinmass Web Site Redesign

2009-06-06T18:10:00.002-05:00

I've redesigned my Spinmass web site. Mostly it's the same content with a new visual design and structure. Old links should redirect to new versions of the pages. In the future I plan to post less content here, and keep the site more up to date. This blog would then be more for comments, ideas, etc.

Go to Spinmass

Terrain Sculptor 1.2.1 Fixes Web Map Images Again

2009-06-06T18:06:00.002-05:00

I realized I hadn't actually updated Terrain Sculptor after Linden Lab changed the URL format for Second Life web map images again. Now I have, and version 1.2.1 includes the fix.

However, this time I won't be posting the files from here. I redesigned my web site and added a page for Terrain Sculptor. You can download the new version there:

Terrain Sculptor Page

Terrain Sculptor 1.2 - Fixed Web Map Downloads

2009-02-06T16:21:00.004-05:00

Terrain Sculptor 1.2 uses the new web map API from Linden Lab so this feature is functional now (thanks to Henri Beauchamp for pointing me to the API info). Note that the web map API only works for the Second Life grid, not OpenSim grids. If I learn how to retrieve sim map images from OpenSim grids, I intend to add support for that.

Visit Terrain Sculptor Page

Terrain Sculptor 1.13 - Log into OpenSim grids

2009-01-20T17:06:00.004-05:00

Terrain Sculptor 1.13 now allows the user to log into different grids, including OpenSim grids. You can select the Second Life main or preview grids from a list, as well as OSGrid, which uses OpenSim. Or you can enter a URI for any other grid to connect to. The behavior with OpenSim grids doesn't seem to be quite as predictable as with Second Life, but it works. Also, the app now remembers the last avatar name and grid URI you logged in with, so you don't have to retype it.

Visit Terrain Sculptor Page

Terrain Sculptor v1.1.2 - Uses libsl 0.5.0

2009-01-12T10:22:00.004-05:00

I've updated Terrain Sculptor to use the latest stable release of libsecondlife, 0.5.0. Terrain Sculptor 1.1.2 is a .NET 2.0 application which uses a libsecondlife bot (client proxy) to retrieve and store the terrain data for Second Life sims. Users can teleport between sims and maneuver the avatar remotely. Terrain is displayed as a colored height map, and can be saved locally as raw elevation data, grayscale heightmaps, or SL sculpty maps. The sculpty maps can be uploaded to SL to create in-world models of sims.

Visit Terrain Sculptor Page

Export Sculpties from Bailiwick 1.2 Beta

2008-06-19T15:29:00.005-05:00

I've added the ability to export sculpties of the terrain in raw files through Bailiwick 1.2 beta. This is the only new feature in 1.2 beta, but things were shifted around internally so there may be new bugs I haven't caught yet. You can download 1.2 from the Bailiwick page.

To export a sculpty, simply choose Export->Sculpty from the File menu. If the terrain will not fit within a 1 to 1 scale in the sculpty, it will automatically append the scale to the file name after an S. For instance, if the height scale of the terrain file is 2 (heights can range from 0 to 512), then the file name would end in "S2". This means, you would then want your sculpty prim to be twice as high as it is wide (e.g. 1x1x2 meters). Bailiwick exports planar textures but planar mapping for a sculpty prim can only be selected through a script. Below is a script to change the type to planar.

By the way, Second Life currently ignores the parcels defined in a sim .raw file when you upload the file to SL. This is a Second Life issue, not a Bailiwick issue.

Here is a script to change the sculpty type to planar. First drag the sculpty texture into the prim's inventory (it should be the only texture). Then place this script into the prim's inventory. It will automatically set the sculpty texture to the texture in the inventory, set the sculpty type to planar, and then delete itself.


default
{
 state_entry()
 {
  string theKey = "";
  string theName = llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_TEXTURE, 0);
  if (theName != "")
   theKey = llGetInventoryKey(theName);
  if (theKey == "")
  {
   llOwnerSay("No sculpty texture found");
  }
  else
  {
   llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, 
                         theKey, PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_PLANE]);
   llOwnerSay("Sculpty texture set to: " + theName);
  }
  llRemoveInventory(llGetScriptName());
 }
}

Terrain Sculptor Version 1.1.1 - Addresses Login Error

2008-01-06T13:38:00.003-05:00

Some users with some accounts get this error message when logging in through Terrain Sculptor 1.1: "Error retrieving the login response from the server". This is caused by an issue in libsl. It doesn't effect every account; it seems to effect avatars with substantial inventories. If you are getting this error using Terrain Sculptor 1.1, one option is simply to try logging in with an alt with a small inventory. I've been using the tool with an alt without any problems, even though my main account gets the login error.

Another option is version 1.1.1 of Terrain Sculptor. The login issue has been fixed in libsl by a new login system, but the new system is not part of an official release yet. Version 1.1.1 of Terrain Sculptor uses the development version of libsl to avoid the issue. In theory the development version is not reliable, but I haven't run into any problems effecting Terrain Sculptor yet. One difference with the new version is that logins and teleports often seem slower.

As soon as an official release of libsl with the login fix exists, I'll be updating Sculptor to use it.

Visit Terrain Sculptor Page

Terrain Sculptor Version 1.1

2008-01-05T17:06:00.001-05:00

Terrain Sculptor version 1.1 is now available. Terrain Sculptor is an open source program I've written which uses a libsl bot to automatically map sims and generates sculpty textures of their terrain. The key updates in this version are planar sculpties and avatar movement. (v1.0 Blog Entry)

1.0 used the default spherical projection for sculpties, which meant the sides wrapped under and joined. 1.1 uses the planar type, which produces a sculpty much like an actual sim in SL. Unfortunately a script is necessary to change the sculpty type to planar, but one is included in the README (and see below). The "decal" versions of the web map image are no longer generated because they are not neeeded with a planar sculpty.

Second Life has gotten more clever about recognizing when terrain is visible to an avatar, and it doesn't send terrain data that the client doesn't need to render. So I've added the ability to move the avatar around to force all the terrain into view. The avatar's position is updated automatically on the web map image of the sim.

Download the application.

Download the source code and Visual Studio project files.

Here is the script to change the sculpty type to planar. I thought I'd post it here because people might find it convenient for setting planar sculpties in general. First drag the sculpty texture into the prim's inventory (it should be the only texture there). Then place this script into the prim's inventory. It will automatically set the sculpty texture to the texture in the inventory, set the sculpty type to planar, and then delete itself.


default
{
 state_entry()
 {
  string theKey = "";
  string theName = llGetInventoryName(INVENTORY_TEXTURE, 0);
  if (theName != "")
   theKey = llGetInventoryKey(theName);
  if (theKey == "")
  {
   llOwnerSay("No sculpty texture found");
  }
  else
  {
   llSetPrimitiveParams([PRIM_TYPE, PRIM_TYPE_SCULPT, 
                         theKey, PRIM_SCULPT_TYPE_PLANE]);
   llOwnerSay("Sculpty texture set to: " + theName);
  }
  llRemoveInventory(llGetScriptName());
 }
}

ShapeGen and Lathe Available at OnRez

2007-09-03T08:56:00.000-05:00

ShapeGen and the Lathe are both now available for sale at shop.onrez.com. For those of you not familiar, these are building tools of mine which construct large shapes by combining multiple prims. ShapeGen is useful for making large cylinders, cones and spheres. The Lathe allows you to build large curvy shapes by defining a bezier curve to be used as the outline. Both tools continue to be available through SLExchange.

Terrain Sculptor - Maps Sims and Creates Sculpties

2007-08-17T08:29:00.002-05:00

Terrain Sculptor is a tool I've made which maps the terrain of Second Life sims and generates sculpty textures for them. It's written in C# and runs on .NET 2.0. The tool uses the libsecondlife client to log in an avatar to retrieve the terrain data. It also downloads the world-map image of a sim so that it can be used as a texture. A "decal" version can be generated which includes a border to align better with the sculpty. The elevation data can be saved seperately as a binary dump or as a grayscale image. The process typically takes only a few seconds after logging in and the files are saved automatically.

Visit Terrain Sculptor Page

The technique for retrieving terrain data using libsl is taken from the heightmap example in the libsecondlife source code. I used the technique for making sculpties from heightmaps explained by Pamagester Darracq and LaeMi Qian in the SL Wiki.

I've tried to make the application friendly, but it's not a shrink wrapped product. The source is open so people can contribute improvements if they like. Sooner or later I'll add something to generate decent land textures for the sims instead of using the world map image with builds on it (I've done something similar in the past). An obvious missing feature is the ability to generate a grid of sculpty textures instead of one for a sim to achieve a higher resolution. In theory this shouldn't be too hard but I haven't looked into it in detail. I've found that the map decals align better with the sculpty if you offset the decal texture by .015 for some reason.

Terrain Texture with Gradient Map

2007-07-04T18:09:00.002-05:00

Someone was asking me about my mapping of Second Life sims today, which got me to playing with some heightmaps. Not being an expert at Photoshop, I was pleased to find how easy it is to make a simple texture for a sim just using the gradient map tool on a heightmap. It's not that it looks all that slick compared to tiled terrain textures, but it took almost no time. Here's a sample render of Seacliff that I threw together in a couple of minutes in Max.

Lathe Build Tool Now Available

2007-06-11T19:05:00.001-05:00

The Cadroe Lathe build tool is now available through SLExchange.

The Lathe allows you to construct a large shape merely by defining the curve of its outline. You create the curve by adjusting the handles of a bezier curve, familiar to users of Photoshop, and a preview of the outline is generated for you immediately. The Lathe is ideal for creating shapes such as the onion dome of the Taj Mahal, a giant champagne glass, or any shape with a smooth curve. See the accompanying pictures for examples of what the Lathe can do.
The shape produced by the Lathe is highly customizable. You can adjust the thickness, as well as override the height and witdh of each block. You can set the color, texture, alpha and texture scale. The Lathe can also generate only a certain section of the final shape, or rotate the shape by an amount you specify. The Lathe creates the shape by rezzing and arranging mutliple box prims. The more prims that are used, the smoother the shape.

For a quick demonstration and complete instructions, please visit the Lathe web page.

Virtual Virtual Reality

2007-05-05T09:09:00.001-05:00

A while ago when I was working on my Cartifex project to render the Second Life grid in 3DSMax, I played around with recreating a sim and its builds in Max. I thought it might be an interesting tool for promoting a sim. I did one experiment using the FairChang estate. I was surprised to stumble across a couple of renders from the effort recently and thought I'd share. Having been to the real sims, I find these images a little surreal.

Recent Builds

2007-05-02T06:25:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of things I've built in Second Life lately.

This started off as a blue dome and a portico, and then I used the churches of Santorini, Greece as a model.

For my new home, I wanted to make use of my bezier lathe tool.

Bailiwick Sim Raw File Editor

2007-04-30T12:31:00.001-05:00

Bailiwick is an editor I've written for the .raw files used by Second Life sim owners to configure their sims. Its main purpose is to make it easier to edit the various channels of the raw file (there are 13). It's not a terrain editor, although it displays the terrain channels and can import terrain from Terragen or in image heightfields. It's officially still in beta. Feel free to download it and try it out.

Bailiwick Home Page

ShapeGen 1.02 Available on SLExchange

2007-04-27T09:03:00.000-05:00

I've finally taken the sensible step of making my ShapeGen tool available for instant purchase through SLExchange.

ShapeGen on SLExchange

ShapeGen creates large cylinders and spheres by rezzing and combining box prims. It's been in Second Life for a long time. You can currently see examples of its use in Cubey Terra's Aerodrome, the IBM center, the silverscreen sim promoting the movie 300, and many other builds.

Here is a picture of Cubey's Aerodrome:

Arbitrary Limitations in Second Life

2005-11-13T11:20:00.000-05:00

As an artifical world Second Life is theoretically unrestricted by the physical limitations of the real world. In practice users interact with Second Life through the metaphor of physical space as avatars in roughly human form. So Second Life includes limitations that meet our expectations and define how we interact with the world. However, it also includes limitations that can seem arbitrary.

The virtual space of Second Life consists of a contiguous terrain surface, it has an orientation due to gravity, and it contains solid objects that support avatars. These analogs to the real world make it easy for us to engage in Second Life. Up and down are defined in the familiar way; things fall down (and float up). There is unimpeded sky above our virtual heads, although there could just as easily be another surface with avatars standing on it looking "up" at us. Restrictions are an inherent result of the consistent definitions that make a useful interface, even when that interface is an entire world. Without them we could find ourselves in an Escheresque landscape impossible to navigate.

But Second Life isn't entirely enslaved to the rules of natural physics. It takes advantage of its artificial nature to give us some fantastic freedoms. The most noticable difference from reality might be the ability of avatars to fly. In the real world we don't walk through a maze of city blocks or wait for elevators because we want to; we do it because gravity sticks us to the earth like glue. In Second Life we tap a key and zoom over obstacles or up to the tenth floor effortlessly. It's a measure of the value of this freedom that although land owners can turn off the ability to fly on their parcels (once you have landed), practically no one does so. Another useful break with reality is the ability to place objects anywhere without support. If you want a platform in the sky, you can just place one there. You don't need a web of iron struts like the Eiffel tower (or a degree in structural engineering, or an elevator). As one more small example, avatars never drown. There is no need for scuba equipment in Second Life. ("You still think that's air you're breathing?")

On the other hand, Second Life imposes limitations for reasons that sometimes are not clear. Probably the most controversial check on virtual freedom is the inability to teleport directly from one location to another at will, usually called point-to-point teleporting. Instead avatars must teleport to telehubs spread throughout the world, and then fly to their destination, sometimes quite far away. This can be a tedious and unreliable process, as flying is impeded by lag, obtrusive buildings, restricted parcels and hostile user security scripts. This restriction seems odd on the face of it because point-to-point teleporting does exist; getting to a telehub is an example, as is logging in to one's home location, and one user can invite another user to teleport to his location directly. But it seems especially arbitrary because previously users could teleport anywhere in Second Life by clicking on the map. They simply paid a small fee proportional to the distance. At some point Linden Lab removed this ability and replaced it with the telehub system. So this is a limitation that strikes some people not only as arbitrary, but even somewhat capricious, in that it took away a commonly used option that wasn't causing any obvious problems. Second Life staff have said that the goal was to foster communities around telehubs, but unfortunately what has developed around the telehubs are malls and advertising. Telehubs have become the equivelant of the ads one has to click through when following a link on a web site. In this case, although the restriction was not genuinely arbitrary from Linden Lab's point of view, the effect is when seen from the user's point of view. It is ironic that so many fantasize about teleportation in the real world, but in this virtual world it has been deliberately hobbled.

A more subtle limitation is daylight, or the lack thereof. Second Life has a day and night cycle that takes four hours to complete. This means that light in this digitally rendered world is, to some extent, a limited resource. The user can actually force the sun to rise or place it at any point in the sky through options on the Debug menu. But as soon as she's done so, the sun instantly begins to set again. The result is that many users force the sun to rise as soon as they enter Second Life and then periodically push it back into the sky as they work, play or travel. Unlimited daylight is another example of a feature which exists in the game but is arbitrarily restricted. Not only can any user force the sun to rise repeatedly, but owners of private islands can permanently set the time of day on their land.

There are doubtless causes if not rationales for all the seemingly arbitrary limitations in Second Life. Some of them are the result of attempted social engineering by the world's designers, while others may be unintended consequences that the developers haven't had a chance to address. But overall it suggests that Linden Lab has not yet achieved the promise of an artifically created virtual world in which anything desirable is also possible.

Second Life 1.7 In-world Map

2005-10-30T13:29:00.000-05:00

The in-world map in Second Life has been updated in 1.7. It now shows the sims shaded and textured as if viewed from a satellite, and the default view also shows the objects in the sims. Apparently the new map actually uses the next version of the Second Life renderer, so this is not a stylized map display but an actual 3D render from a fixed camera orientation.

Screenshot, click to enlarge.

I've been looking forward to the new map because it will help me create a textured view for myself. The main challenge in generating sim textures is actually collecting data: what textures are used at what altitudes, what textures go into a single sim material (texture set), and which sims use which materials. The process of doing this inside Second Life is slow and tedious, much more so than popping into a new sim and surveying the topography. The new map will make the process much quicker, and I'm looking forward to collecting some definitive data on the sim materials.

Another improvement in 1.7 is the ability to find out a sim's rating through the scripting API. I plan on sweeping the whole grid collecting ratings to make sure my sim data is correct. I'm not sure why Linden Lab doesn't make more sim data available. I can think of a number of attributes that would be useful, such as a short description, owner, and access. I personally would explore islands a lot more if I could have some clue what they were about before I visited. As it is you don't know if you're teleporting to a busy mall, an empty desert, or a BDSM dungeon.

I've started working on a new library for working with grid data, this time in Java. This is because I need to brush up my Java before taking some exemption exams in January. So I've decided to use this as an opportunity to start a new version of the code library. I've been working out the new design in UML and I think there will be some real improvements.

Grid Chart Landmarks Work

2005-10-15T09:48:00.000-05:00

I've been working on the landmark system for Grid Chart, including ratings. To me the idea of ratings is to help people know what to expect. Also if you have explicit ratings it makes features like filters or searches more practical. I figure two kinds of content people are often interested in knowing about are sex and violence, whether they want to find it or avoid it, so I think those should be standard ratings in some form or other. Also I don't think a ratings system should try to convey everything. A shared landmark should include a description and people should use common sense.

One thing I realized is that there's a distinction between what's allowed at a place versus how extreme it might get. You might have an art gallery that shows anything, only a small amount of it sexual, but there might be no limit on how extreme it gets. On the other hand you might have a gallery focused only on erotica, but it doesn't show anything more hardcore than what you'd find in a magazine like Maxim. If you simply rate the first gallery X and the second one PG-13 (using movie ratings just for example), I think you're missing something pretty important.

At first I thought about two categories of ratings, one for the intensity and another one for how appropriate or likely the content is. But now I'm considering not having a rating for "intensity" at all. Just something like "None - Some - A Lot - Essential". So in the example above the first gallery would have a sex rating of "Some" and the second gallery would have a sex rating of "Essential", and people would have to depend on the description for a better idea of the content.

Below are the properties I currently have for landmarks. I haven't ruled out a tag system for the future but the initial goal is something simple, predictable and easy to share. My plan is for Grid Chart users to share landmarks peer-to-peer and to subscribe to lists of landmarks. As much as possible I want Grid Chart to be able to display and work with common types of landmarks (clubs, homes, mature vs not mature) in a predictable manner.

Name
Sim
Coordinates
Category (Home, Retail, Game, Club, Art, Casino, Venue, Park, Attraction, Religion, etc)
Description (short, 512 characters)
Access (Private, Open, Fee)
Place Owner
Landmark Creator
Date Landmark Created
Sex Content
Violence Content

Grid Chart Web Page and Demo

2005-10-02T13:32:00.001-05:00

I've udpdated the Grid Chart page of my web site with more current info and screenshots. Instead of repeating it here I'll just post a link:

Grid Chart Page at SpinMass.com

With some trepidation I've included a link there to a demo version of Grid Chart. I would call it an early beta with some missing features. It requires .NET 1.1.

Grid Renders and the SLCC Sims

2005-10-01T08:13:00.001-05:00

I've found the Faux Terrain map style I described below to work pretty well. In fact, it's become my default view as I use Grid Chart. I decided to apply this style as textures to a 3DSMax model of the Second Life grid and see how it came out. Below are a few rendered results.

The first image is a closeup of the racing sims customized for the first annual Second Life Community Convention to be held October 8-9 in New York. It's hard to tell in this image, but those little mountains spell out SLCC. The second and third images show the whole mainland. The third image is 1024x768 because I wanted to use it as a desktop for a bit.

Click to enlarge.

Faux Terrain Map Style

2005-09-22T09:30:00.000-05:00

An idea I've had for a while is a Second Life map style somewhere in between the original in-world map and a true textured view. The in-world map does a good job of expressing the basic shape of the land and water, but uses only a few gradations and somewhat eccentric colors. The 1.7 map apparently renders the terrain with textures, but I think this might lose some of the useful schematic qualities of the current version. I've been experimenting with a style in between. The idea is to use colors which the user associates with natural terrain features (sand, grass, rock) to communicate elevation even though these features don't correspond to the actual textures of the sim terrain. The style also displays three different ranges of water depth which I find useful. Below is an image saved out of Grid Chart which shows the current state of this style.

Click for larger version.

Lake Hope Topography

2005-09-21T12:49:00.000-05:00

I've been calling the large area of void sims northeast of the snow sims Lake Hope. It's a lake with islands at the center. I was looking at its topography and decided it was so nice I'd give it special attention here. Here are a couple of elevation maps of the area, one with sim borders and names and one without. I appreciate the effort the Lindens put into terraforming.

Grid Chart Work

2005-09-20T12:37:00.000-05:00

I'm still working on Grid Chart, although I'm taking a couple of college courses which slows the pace. The two main areas I've been working on are error handling and user settings. A big improvement I got in is that images used for sims (for instance elevation maps) are now created on a background thread, so that the user can continue to use the map as they're loaded. I also added some more events generated by the map control. At the moment there are: SimSelectionChanged, SimUnderMouseChanged, and SimFocusChanged. There are a number of planned features that I'm putting off until I get this initial version done.

Here's a pic of what the main Grid Chart window looks like today, with color elevation maps in the middle of loading.

Second Life Mainland Sim Data

2005-09-17T10:58:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to my data for the mainland sims for those who might want it.

http://www.spinmass.com/2life/docs/MainlandSims9_16_05.txt

The sim data is comma-delimited, one sim per line:

Name,X,Y,Water Level,Rating,Material,Ownership,Function,Region

Examples:
Abbotts,256000,255232,20,PG,Green1,Public,Open,Serpentine
Abitibi,263168,256256,20,Mature,Green2,Public,Open,Tacklebox
Achemon,257024,260608,20,Mature,Rusty,Public,Open,Offshore

I'd ignore material and region, which are my own stuff and in flux anyway. The ratings should be mostly right. Ownership and function are fairly accurate but I wouldn't count on it for newer sims.

The hub data contains the sim name and x y z coords.

Second Life Desktop Images

2005-09-12T14:29:00.000-05:00

I made myself a desktop image of the Second Life mainland, and thought I'd post it in case anyone else would like it. I made three different sizes, each of which is a jpg.

1280x1024 - 1024x768 - 800x600

Grid Map .NET Control

2005-09-11T06:18:00.000-05:00

Although the actual map display of my Grid Chart application has always been a seperate control, I finally got around to splitting it out into its own library. This means it can be used in any .NET application, i.e. it can be added to the toolbox in Visual Studio and dropped on a form. It depends on another library for working with grid and sim data (SLGridLib2). The immediate benefit to me was that I could add it to the application I use to map Second Life, as seen below, which is very convenient. But also it means I can make it available to others who might have a use for it (after a little more work).

Northern Continent Growing

2005-09-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

The northern continent in Second Life continues to grow impressively. The mass taking up most of the western portion is an impressive hill which slopes gently down to the water. Here are some renders of the area with a few different texture styles.

Click to enlarge.

Grid Chart - Second Life Map

2005-09-03T09:18:00.000-05:00

I've been on a push to finish my interactive Second Life map application, Grid Chart. It's similar to the in-world map, but runs locally on .NET so it's faster and has extra features like drag selection, saving maps to file, and a search tool. I've added a sim terrain view in the same style as the in-world map, and I'm working on a textured view (apparently the map in 1.7 already does this). Here's a shot of the terrain view in use.

Click to enlarge.

Ben Wuz Here

2005-08-27T08:17:00.000-05:00

The final remaining empty areas of the mainland in Second Life have been filled in with "void" sims. This is a nice achievement that finally allows people to travel anywhere without running into large invisible walls. Apparently Ben Linden couldn't resist leaving his mark on the new sims. Here is the topograhy of Egan:

Nice new sims in Second Life

2005-08-01T08:46:00.000-05:00

There is a new batch of very nice sims in the north west of the SL grid. Here's a couple 3DS Max renders of the terrain.

Map Trip - An Animation

2005-06-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

This short animation is a trip into the theoretical third dimension of the Second Life map. It's just supposed to be a bit of silly fun. It's a 13 second Quicktime movie and the file is 3.2 megabytes.

Click the image to download.

SL Terrain Mapping Done

2005-06-25T11:23:00.000-05:00

I've finished mapping the terrain of the continent of Second Life. Below is a map of the grid generated in the style of the in-world map. I added the ability to create this type of map because SL residents are already familiar with it. I'm working now on interactive grid maps for the web and for Windows .NET.

Click for larger version.

Second Life void sims

2005-06-21T12:08:00.000-05:00

Linden Lab has been adding "void" sims to fill in empty areas in the Second Life grid. This means people will be able to travel through these spaces instead of going around. Apparently the servers being used are the old servers of sims which have been upgraded to new hardware. Here's a picture of the terrain of a set of new void sims along the southern coast of the Japanese sims. It's cool that they put in detail such as the long underwater valley.

Sample Terrain Data and MATLAB

2005-06-18T13:46:00.000-05:00

The terrain data I'm collecting in Second Life is stored in comma delimited text files like this one for Seacliff. The first column in each row is the y coordinate of that row's data. If you happen to have access to MATLAB, you can create a 3D image from this data in three lines:

S = dlmread('Seacliff_Terrain.txt',',');
S = S(:,2:end);
surf (S); figure(gcf)

The first line reads the data into a matrix. The second line removes the first column. The third line plots the surface.

Of course you can create a lot of other different plots. Here's a contour plot with default settings.

Parametric Curves in 3D

2005-06-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

I learned about parametric curves recently and thought they were so neat I decided to make some in Second Life. I scripted a tool for making them. If I find the time to polish it up I'll put it out for free like ShapeMaker.

Here is an epitrochoid. I think it took between 150 and 200 prims to get it this smooth.

And here is something I called a torus ribbon. I don't know if it's an established curve of some sort, it was just an idea I had. It's supposed to be the path of a spiral along the surface of a torus. As you can see I messed up the equation slightly so I'll have to debug it.

3D Grid Viewer Update

2005-06-16T10:50:00.000-05:00

I've been learning OpenGL programming by writing a 3D grid viewer which uses the terrain data I'm collecting from Second Life. I put an old screen shot below. I recently changed the file format for the height data from a grayscale bitmap to a text file. Since then I've updated the viewer to use the new format and implemented a simple level of detail mechanism which operates on a sim by sim basis. The next step is frustum culling of sims.

Grid Mapping Update

2005-06-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

I've been mapping the topography of the Second Life grid. I use a scripted object with multiple scripts to scan the terrain at 2 meter intervals to a precision of .1 meters. Here's an image showing my progress. I'm ignorning the private island sims for now, because they change so quickly.

Click to see the larger version. This image maps the height of the terrain to color hue.

Introduction

2005-06-16T10:19:00.000-05:00

This doesn't feel like a real blog yet. I have various projects included on my web site SpinMass.com that I'd like to post updates about. A blog seems like a more practical way to do it than editing web pages. This will also allow people to comment or ask questions. For now these projects are all related to the virtual world of Second Life, but I'll probably be adding other things related to computer interfaces and 3D programming.