WTF is Transformation Matrix?

A transformation matrix transforms a vector of point coordinates in given frame of reference into coordinates in another one (e.g. from child to parent in our beloved display lists or scene graphs) – Captain Obvious.

Many people think of transformation matrices as impenetrable black boxes filled with random numbers that are impossible to make sense of while fiddling with your application. So this 1st post of the year is my attempt to help those people, by providing as short and simple explanation for those numbers as possible.

P.S. Since matrices transform vectors, you need to know a thing or two about vectors 1st.

Programming

This comic surpasses xkcd 722 in expressing my sentiments towards the reality of programming:

 

Grab my balls

So, I have started cross-engine 3D primitives project at github. Just like as3dmod, it plugs seamlessly into your favorite engine to help you out whenever you feel limited by it. Initial commit supports Alternativa3D 8.12, Away3D 4 Alpha, Minko 1 and contains two spheric primitives: UniformSphere and Globe.

UniformSphere is a mesh built from the spiral of vertices uniformly distributed across the sphere. You have two options here: Rakhmanov formula (default, the spiral joins sphere poles) or Bauer formula (the spiral does not contain poles). This primitive was ported from my 3D metaballs code.

Globe is a mesh that minimizes texture distortions for classic plate carré projection. It does so by placing equilateral triangles along the equator and gradually compressing triangles towards each pole (where high triangle density is actually good property in terms of texture distortions). This primitive was ported from my globe component for FP9, which is now also hosted at github.

I plan to add few more primitives over time, both useful and not really, and maybe more engine proxies if there will be any interest.

Escape Adventure

Yesterday I found myself creating Escape Adventure game for Ludum Dare 48 hours compo, a kind of event they used to run in Flash Kit game forum but I don’t think I ever participated. Funny thing is that this stuff is way closer to things that got me into flash than stuff I actually do with flash now.

My entry was heavily influenced by awesome PSTW Action RPG, which I really wish all RPGs were like.

Still messing with qtrack

Ok, boring things first. I uploaded another qtrack version with some minor fixes and improvements, and also added broomstick example there. Nothing groundbreaking so far.

Now, to fun things. I tried to make non-square marker qtrack mod based on this method. You can see in this video how far I could push it:

but, overall, this was a failure. Unlike that guy, I had only one shape to detect, so at 1st I thought I could use max ICF value between blob and marker contours (ideally 1) and compare it to confidence threshold. However, this picked way too much false positives. So in 2nd iteration, that you see in the video, I had to calculate max ICF values for few hundred blobs 1st, and then pick the blob with max of those values. This worked somewhat better, but in the long run, it is still unreliable. Here is a distribution of max max ICF values thresholded at 0.7:

As you see, even shape as simple as flash logo produces really poor values most of the time. Another equally significant problem is that BitmapData’s threshold() method produces poor contours when threshold is not optimal: over-illuminated patches of the marker punch random ”holes” in its binarized version and contaminate detected contour. To sum up, you will have to stick with quad markers for some time, sorry.