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Paint 3-D images with PHP

Mike Brittain (mike@mikebrittain.com), Director of Technology, ID Society

Mike Brittain is the director of technology at ID Society, a full-service Internet marketing agency in New York City. He has been developing Web sites and applications for more than 10 years, focusing on open source languages and applications. When not at his computer, he can often be found on skis or a snowboard. He can be reached at mike@mikebrittain.com.

Summary: PHP, a language originally intended for Web development, has been used for years to manage dynamic Web sites and database applications. Extensions to the language available through the PHP Extension and Application Repository (PEAR) have allowed developers to take the language in new and interesting directions. PEAR's Image_3D package is an object-oriented interface for creating three-dimensional (3-D) graphics in a variety of formats, including PNG and SVG, two image formats with increasing support by modern Web browsers. Find out how to use the Image_3D package, learn the limitations of using dynamic 3-D images, and investigate solutions and practical applications of 3-D graphics.

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Date: 28 Mar 2006
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (240 KB | 37 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 11195 views
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Before you start

This tutorial is for PHP programmers interested in dynamically generating 3-D graphics. Images can be created from scratch, built up from objects and light sources positioned in space according to X, Y, and Z coordinates. Programmers with experience using 3-D Studio Max will see how to import objects from 3DS files into PHP creations. Complex surfaces defined by parametric equations can easily be mapped using Image_3D. Finally, business applications and data reports can be enhanced by adding pie charts generated on the fly.

About this tutorial

Image_3D is an object-oriented interface for creating 3-D images. Objects and lights are positioned in a 3-D space according to X, Y, and Z coordinates. Images are then rendered into 2-D space and can be stored as PNG, SVG, or output to the shell (for use on ANSI shells). The package can be used to easily generate a handful of simple 3-D objects, including cubes, cones, spheres, text, and pie graphs. In addition, there is support for importing and modifying objects created in 3-D Studio Max. Developers with a strong understanding of 3-D spaces can take advantage of the custom polygram and surface maps to create some interesting objects.

The first half of this tutorial will demonstrate how to use command-line PHP scripts to generate 3-D image files. After setting up a basic 3-D space with colors and lights, each unique 3-D object type will be investigated, as well as each of the output file formats. The second half will discuss how to turn these basic examples into practical applications. Generating 3-D images is a processor-intensive task, so you will identify a solution for this problem in order to take dynamically generated images to the Web, without crashing your Web servers. The Image_3D package supports only static image formats, so you will build a simple JavaScript solution for animating the 3-D spaces. Finally, you will write a PHP class for displaying data reports in colorful pie charts that can be integrated with business applications.

System requirements

The following software and tools are required to follow along:

PHP V5: The Image_3D package is written using the PHP V5 object and class syntax.

Image_3D: The PEAR package will need to be installed. Typically, the installation of Image_3D should be easy if you have root (or administrator) access to your machine. Because Image_3D is in alpha release, the PEAR installation may complain that the package is not "stable." Use the -f option to force the installation:

pear install -f Image_3D

GD: This graphics library is required to output PNG files, though other file types can be generated from Image_3D in the absence of GD. As of PHP V4.3, a version of the GD library comes bundled with new PHP installations. So there's a good chance you won't need to worry about recompiling PHP. You can use phpinfo() to see if your current PHP installation is GD-enabled.

Web server: Examples in the second half of the tutorial can be built for use on a Web site. The Apache's open source Web server and IBM HTTP Server are two options, if you don't already have a Web server available.

SVG viewer: SVG files can be viewed in Mozilla Firefox V1.5, which includes native SVG support. Internet Explorer users can add SVG support to the browser by downloading the Adobe SVG plug-in.

Prerequisites

This tutorial assumes at least a base knowledge of objects and classes, as the entire interface for Image_3D is object-oriented. Access to a Linux® shell account or a Windows® command prompt is required for executing command-line PHP examples shown in the first half of the tutorial. Basic experience with JavaScript is also assumed.

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