Uhm, what exactly does the bounding sphere in Java 3D do?
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In general terms (not specific to Java 3D), a bounding object is a "simple" object that is guaranteed to completely enclose some other objects.
By perform relatively inexpensive intersection tests on the bounding object a renderer can avoid performing any expensive intersection tests on any of those enclosed objects.
The bounding object doesn't appear within the scene - its sole purpose is for this optimising away of intersection tests.
For example, I might have a complicated shape made out of thousands of polygons. In the absence of any other optimisations, I'd have to test every single polygon to check whether it's visible or not. With a bounding sphere, if the sphere isn't "visible", then neither are any of those polygons.
Alnitak
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What is the fundamental importance of the bounding sphere in declaring the light sources in a given scene? – Yuno Feb 20 '11 at 15:47
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Ohhhh, i get it... so that means that it reduces the amount of computational complexity especially when talking about scenes. – Yuno Feb 20 '11 at 15:59
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For every 3D geometry we can calculate a sphere so that all points of the given geometry are inside the sphere. That's a bounding sphere.
Andreas Dolk
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