Pi3D written by Tim Skillman, Paddy Gaunt, Tom Ritchford Copyright (c) 2013

There's plenty of 3D code flying around at the moment for the Raspberry Pi, but much of it is rather complicated to understand and most of it can sit under the bonnet!

pi3d is a Python module that aims to greatly simplify writing 3D in Python whilst giving access to the power of the Raspberry Pi GPU. It enables both 3D and 2D rendering and aims to provide a host of exciting commands to load in textured/animated models, create fractal landscapes, shaders and much more.

This is the fourth release of the pi3d module which now uses the OpenGLES2.0 functionality of the Raspberry Pi directly. This makes it generally faster and opens up the world of shaders that allow effects such as normal and reflection maps, blurring and many others. It has various demos of built-in shapes, landscapes, model loading, walk-about camera and much more! See the demos included with this code and experiment with them ..

If you are reading this document as the ReadMe in the repository then you can find the full version of the documentation here http://pi3d.github.com/html/index.html

1. ForestWalk.py Walk about a forest on a landscape generated from a bitmap .. image:: images/forestwalk_sml.png :align: right
2. Triceratops.py Large model loading with several bitmaps .. image:: images/triceratops_sml.png
3. BuckfastAbbey.py Explore a model of the beautiful Buckfast Abbey in Buckfastleigh, Devon, England .. image:: images/buckfast_sml.png :align: right
4. Earth.py Demonstrates semi-transparent clouds and hierarchical rotations .. image:: images/earth_sml.png
5. Clouds3D.py Blended sprites in perspective view .. image:: images/clouds3d_sml.png :align: right
6. Raspberry_Rain.py Raining Raspberries, full-screen, over the desktop .. image:: images/raspberryrain_sml.png
7. RobotWalkabout.py Another off-planet example of a basic avatar robot drifting about .. image:: images/walkabout_sml.png :align: right

8. EnvironmentCube.py New environment cubes to try out in texture/ecubes -some high quality ones!

   

9. Shapes.py Demos available shapes and text in a 3D context .. image:: images/shapes_sml.png :align: right
10. MarsStation.py Navigate around an abandoned Mars base-station with open/shut doors. Implements a new Level-Of-Detail (LOD) feature and TKwindow interface .. image:: images/marsstation_sml.png
11. Amazing.py Can you find yourself around the amazing maze? .. image:: images/amazing_sml.png :align: right
12. TigerTank.py Ever played World Of Tanks (WOT)? This tank emulates how a WOT tank works. Uses realistic modelling in a TKwindow .. image:: images/tigertank_sml.png
13. Pong.py A snazzy 3D version of landscape pinball and pong against a Raspberry! .. image:: images/pong_sml.png :align: right
14. Blur.py Simulates giving the camera a focal distance and blurs nearer and further objects .. image:: images/blur_sml.png
15. LoadModelObj.py Loads a model from obj file (quicker) and applies a normal map and relfection map .. image:: images/teapot_sml.png :align: right
16. Silo.py Uses the Building class to create a claustrophobic maze set in the desert. .. image:: images/silo_sml.png
17. Water.py A series of wave normal maps are used to animate a surface and produce a realistic moving reflection. .. image:: images/water_sml.png :align: right
18. ClashWalk.py The graphics processor calculates where the camera can or cannot go depending on what is drawn in front of it. Potentially useful for first person navigation
19. CollisionBalls.py More bouncing balls across the screen -this time bouncing off each other on the desktop

Total zipped download from github c. 24 MB

1. pi3d The main pi3d module files 540 kB
2. shaders Shader files used by the pi3d module 33 kB
3. echomesh Utility functions 14kB
4. textures Various textures to play with 13 MB
5. models Demo obj and egg models 26 MB
6. fonts ttf and Bitmap fonts that can be using for drawing text see in /usr/share/fonts/truetype for others, or look online. 1.0 MB
7. demos Source code of the demos included 96 kB
8. screenshots Example screenshots of the demos included 860 kB
9. documentation Where this documentation lives 5.7 MB
10. ChangeLog.txt Latest changes of Pi3D
11. ReadMe.rst This file

1. Memory Split setup

   Although most demos work on 64MB of memory, you are strongly advised to have a 128MB of graphics memory split, especially for full-screen 3D graphics. In the latest Raspbian build you need to either run sudo raspi-config or edit the config.txt file (in the boot directory) and set the variable gpu_mem=128 for 128MB of graphics memory.

2. Install Python Imaging

   Before trying any of the demos or Pi3D, you must download the Python Imaging Library as this is needed for importing any graphics used by Pi3. To install on the terminal, type:

   sudo apt-get install python-imaging

3. Install Geany to run Pi3D

   Although you can use any editor and run the scripts in a terminal using python, Geany is by far the easiest and most compatible application to use for creating and running Python scripts. Download and install it with:

   sudo apt-get install geany xterm

4. Optionally, install tk.

   Some of the demos require the tk graphics toolkit. To download and install it:

   sudo apt-get install tk

5. Load and run

   Load any of the demos into Geany and run (using the cogs icon). As a minimum, scripts need these elements in order to use the pi3d library:

   import pi3d
   DISPLAY = pi3d.Display.create(w=128, h=128)
   shader = pi3d.Shader("shaders/2d_flat")
   sprite = pi3d.ImageSprite("textures/PATRN.PNG", shader)
   while DISPLAY.loop_running():
     sprite.draw()

   But.. a real application will need other code to actually do something, for instance to get user input in order to stop the program!

The whole idea of Pi3d is that you don't have to get involved in too many of the nuts and bolts of how the OpenGL graphics processor works however it might help to get an overview of the layout of Pi3d. More detailed explanations can be found in the documentation of each of the modules.

Display The Display class is the core and is used to hold screen dimension information, to initiate the graphics functionality and for 'central' information, such as timing, for the animation. There needs to be an instance of Display in existence before some of the other objects are created so it's a good idea to create one first job.

Shape All objects to be drawn by Pi3d inherit from the Shape class which holds details of position, rotation, scale as well as specific data needed for drawing the shape. Each Shape contains an array of Buffer objects; normally only containing one but there could be more in complicated models created with external 3D applications.

Buffer The Buffer objects contain the arrays of values representing vertices, normals, faces and texture coordinates in a form that can be quickly read by the graphics processor. Each Buffer object within a Shape can be textured using a different image or shade (RGB) value and, if needed, a different Shader

Shader The Shader class is used to compile very fast programs that are run on the graphics processor. They have two parts: Vertex Shaders that do calculation for each of the vertices of the Buffer and Fragment Shaders applied to each pixel. In Pi3d we have kept the shaders out of the main python files and divided them using the two extensions .vs and .fs The shader language is C like, very clever indeed, but rather hard to fathom out.

Camera In order to draw a Shape on the Display the Shader needs to be passed the vertex information in the Buffers and needs know how the Shape has been moved. But it also needs to know how the Camera has moved. The Camera class generally has just one instance and if you do not create one explicitly then Display will generate a default one when you first try to draw something. The Camera has position and rotation information similar to Shapes but also information to create the view, such as how wide-angle or telephoto the lens is.

Texture The Texture objects are used to load images from file into a form that can be passed to the Shader to draw onto a surface. They can also be applied as normal maps to give much finer local detail or as reflection maps - a much faster way to make surfaces look shiny than ray tracing.

Light To produce a 3D appearance most of the Shaders use directional lighting and if you draw a Shape without creating a Light a default instance will be created by the Display. The Light has properties defining the direction, the colour (and strength i.e. RGB values) and ambient colour (and strength).

When you look through the demos you will see one or two things that may not be immediately obvious. All the demos start with:

#!/usr/bin/python
from __future__ import absolute_import, division, print_function, unicode_literals

Although these lines can often be left out, the first tells any process running the file as a script that it's python and the second is basically to help the transition of this code to run using python 3:

import demo

Allows the demo files to be put in a subdirectory but still run. If you write a program in the top directory then you will need to take this out:

import pi3d

Is an alternative to importing just what you need i.e.:

from pi3d.constants import *
from pi3d import Display
from pi3d.Texture import Texture
from pi3d.Keyboard import Keyboard
from pi3d.Light import Light
from pi3d.Shader import Shader
from pi3d.util.String import String
...
from pi3d.shape.Sphere import Sphere
from pi3d.shape.Sprite import Sprite

If you import the whole lot using import pi3d then you need to prefix classes and functions with pi3d. And you are loading a large number of variable names which might cause a conflict, isn't as explicit and is less tidy (in the non-superficial sense)! A third way to import the modules would be to use from pi3d import * this saves having to use the pi3d. prefix but is much harder to debug if there is a name conflict.

Please note that Pi3D functions may change significantly during it's development.

Bug reports, comments, feature requests and fixes are most welcome!

Please email on pi3d@googlegroups.com or contact us through the Raspberry Pi forums or on http://pi3d.github.com/html/index.html

Pi3D started with code based on Peter de Rivaz 'pyopengles' (https://github.com/peterderivaz/pyopengles) with some tweaking from Jon Macey's code (jonmacey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/).

Many Thanks, especially to Peter de Rivaz, Jon Macey, Richar Urwin, Peter Hess, David Wallin and others who have contributed to Pi3D - keep up the good work!

PLEASE READ LICENSING AND COPYRIGHT NOTICES ESPECIALLY IF USING FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES