FireMonkey 3D - Sun, Earth and Moon

Following up on an earlier post, Simple FireMonkey 3D, I'm going to make a simplified model of the solar system to explore multiple 3D objects interacting with each other in a scene. I'll also play around a little with light sources.

Firemonkey Particles

We see images with connected points used a lot in diagrams, illustrations, advertising and just cool abstract art. They visually represent networks of related things and ideas or connectivity. The web, for example. It's effective and visually appealing and when the effect is animated, it's mesmerising. And popular. There are any number of animated backgrounds and JavaScript libraries to add moving particles to web pages, including the very appropriately named particles.js.

I'm going to make a Delphi version using FireMonkey.

Quick and Dirty FireMonkey Donut Gauge

Someone was asking where they could find gauge style chart components for FireMonkey like the ones you might see on a dashboard. They even helpfully posted some pictures.

At least one of these looks like it would be easy to reproduce without any third party components.

Simple FireMonkey 3D

Creating 3D software is undeniably cool, but it might be intimidating, what with all of the math and unfamiliar concepts. And the math...

Fortunately, FireMonkey does a lot of the heavy lifting for us. You can get started while writing little or no code and still have the option of digging deeper when you need to. It's a familiar concept for Delphi developers.

We'll create a simple FireMonkey 3D application and explore some of the basics.

FireMonkey 3D Enterprise Application

You might remember me writing that the FireMonkey framework isn't a full-blown gaming engine and that it's better suited to enterprise applications. (rimshot)

Revenge of the Fifth

You didn't think I'd go through the trouble of making a Star Wars Day post and miss out on the obvious follow-up pun, did you?

The demo project (available here) is pretty much the same as the previous one except that it uses a different 3D model from  Star Wars: Thrawn's Revenge II: Ascendancy. Thanks again to CoreyLoses.

May the Fourth (be with you) - and some FireMonkey feature requests

Happy Star Wars Day!

What? Delphi programming types are allowed to be silly sometimes. :)

Climate Spiral Visualisation

Happy Earth Day!

April 22nd, 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Initially started in the United States in response to things like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, it has grown to include annual events coordinated in over 193 countries and continues to promote environmental and climate literacy today.

An effective way to communicate complex topics and the staggering amount of published data is to find a clear, approachable way to visualise it. Easier said than done, but a really interesting challenge for all of the data nerds and software developers out there.

Data is cool.

In 2016, British climate scientist Ed Hawkins created a simple, but clear, animated radar chart showing the progression of global warming over time. This is called a climate spiral and it's gotten a lot of public attention. It was featured in the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics and similar charts have been created for atmospheric CO2, Arctic sea ice volume and extent and to show predicted temperature changes out to 2100 based on different scenarios.

If you like his climate spirals, check out his work on warming stripes.

Fortunately, the concept is simple enough that a layperson, like myself, could replicate it. So I thought it might make for an interesting Delphi programming exercise.