Hi everyone, I'm new to DirectX development and 3D graphics programming in general, so hopefully this is just a very simple question for most of you. Basically, I need to render a filled 3D polygonal shape that's specified as follows: Start vertex: (x, y, z) coordinates Vector list: A list of (deltaX, deltaY, deltaZ) offsets from each vertex to the next vertex in the shape. The final vector will always end up back at the start vertex. Example: The following corresponds to a 3D "L" shape consisting of two orthogonal rectangles: Start vertex: { 5, 1, -2 } Vector list: { { 0, 10, 0 }, { 0, 0, -10 }, { 0, -10, 0 }, { 10, 0, 0 }, { 0, 0, -10 }, { -10, 0, 0 } } Obviously, the above is an extremely simple case. I need to be able to handle much more complex and general cases, including non-convex shapes (although I've some flexibility in how I choose to interpret degenerate or self-intersecting cases). Unfortunately, I cannot change or augment the input format, as this is all I'm getting from an external component. My question: what would be some good ways to triangulate such a shape so that I can render it using a single DrawPrimitives call? I've spent a lot of time googling this topic. While I've been able to implement a decent solution for drawing these shapes in 2D (i.e. input cases where the z values are always zero), I currently can't figure out how to handle the more general 3D case. *Any* help or pointers to relevant resources will be extremely appreciated! Thanks a lot in advance!

Let's not forget that triangles are not the only shapes DrawPrimitive call understands. Why not just draw the lines as a line list? Is it really that necessary to triangulate?

Here's the thing.. The app needs to know all the details about the body, in which order are the vertices set. Not that no one knows how to solve this, far from that, no one wants to deal with it.. Either you:
A) Draw Primitives without index
B) Specify indices yourself
C) Use a modeling tool, export to a file type that you can later just import/translate inside app. (which is the most common method)

Quote:Original post by tokaplan
Let's not forget that triangles are not the only shapes DrawPrimitive call understands. Why not just draw the lines as a line list? Is it really that necessary to triangulate?

Thanks for your reply! I apologize for not being clear enough in my original post; I have no problems drawing the input as a polyline, but what I'm stuck on is figuring out how to draw a filled polygonal shape within the bounds defined by that outline. Any ideas?

Quote:Original post by experiment
Here's the thing.. The app needs to know all the details about the body, in which order are the vertices set. Not that no one knows how to solve this, far from that, no one wants to deal with it.. Either you:
A) Draw Primitives without index
B) Specify indices yourself
C) Use a modeling tool, export to a file type that you can later just import/translate inside app. (which is the most common method)

Thanks very much for your guidance! Unfortunately, approach C isn't a viable option for me, because I'm receiving my input dynamically and continously from an external component, and I need to render this input in real time.

Are you able to point me to some resources that can help me compute the order of the vertices, given the input format that I'm forced to work with? Even a relatively inefficient algorithm would be useful--while I do ultimately need good performance, right now I'm at a stage where it's more important just to get the required functionality up somehow, by hook or by crook!

Right now, I'm a complete novice when it comes to computer graphics, so once again I apologize if my questions are really basic. But I do have a Computer Science degree from my good old college days, so hopefully I'll be able to handle the learning curve and get up to speed with a little bit of help and advice from the good folks here! :)

Thanks again for all the help so far!