Second Edition

March 6, 2006

Jos Laporte noticed that programs Bar1 and Bar2 in Chapter 1 are identical. Bar2 should include subroutine SetTheScale and the call to that routine used in program Bar3.

February 2, 2003

This version uses BSP trees to handles special cases when using surface shading. It can handle mutually overlapping polygons and polygons that pierce easch other. Look at the example data file 3cyl.ray using hidden surface removal and surface shading to see the difference.

Click here to download this version of VBRay.

January 22, 2003

Jason Tranter discovered a bug in the RayDisk class (program VBRay from Chapter 17). The class was not finalizing so it was incorrectly calculating its Z distance. That made the program incorrectly sort disk objects for hidden surface removal.

This version also includes three changes. First, backface removal applies to disks. If a disk's normal indicates it is a backface, it is not drawn when backface removal is turned on.

Second, the number of points drawn to represent a wireframe disk now matches the number of rectangles drawn for a cylinder. That makes these objects line up if you cap a cylinder with a disk.

Finally, the Objects\Normal Objects\Cylinder Caps menu item displays a dialog where you can enter parameters defining a cylinder. When you click Ok, the program inserts new disk objects covering the cylinder's ends.

Click here to download this version of VBRay.

February 9, 2001

The original GetBitmapPixels and SetBitmapPixels routines did not scale colors correctly for 16-bit color. Click here to download a new version of Pixels.bas that handles 16-bit color properly.

March 7, 2000

Figure 12.1 shows program Styles2D, not program Show2D (even though the form's caption is "Show2D").

February 24, 2000

Somehow program Pinch on the CD does the same thing as program Fish. Click here to download a version of Pinch that is different.

January 28, 2000

The RichEdit program in Chapter 4 has problems with its reference to the Microsoft Common Controls. If it won't work for you, download a new version.

January 17, 2000

Program Scenes in Chapter 9 uses module Wipes.bas which was inadvertently saved in the Ch7 directory. If you load the program from the CD or if you copy both directories to your hard disk, Visual Basic will look in the Ch7 directory and find this file with no trouble.

If you want the program all in one place, copy it and Wipes.bas into the same directory and open the project. Visual Basic will remove the reference to the form because it cannot find it. Press ^D and add the module to the project.

January 17, 2000

Somehow form JuliConf in program Julia was omitted from the CD. Click here to download it.

First Edition

May 9, 1997

Not all of the example programs provided with Visual Basic Graphics Programming work correctly under Windows NT. This archive contains installation instructions and the files that must be updated. vbgp_update1.zip

September 29, 1997

If you see the message "This monitor does not support palettes," you probably have a high color system. Follow this link for information about high color systems.

November 6, 1998

If you are using Visual Basic 6, click here.