Date of Award

Spring 5-5-2016

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Computer Science and Engineering

First Reader

Jose Vidal

Second Reader

Bridgette Parsons

Abstract

ZVerse is a 3D printing company that is responsible for converting 2D objects into 3D objects. This company specializes in generating 3D collegiate products. Whenever a customer orders a 3D model, such as an alumni brick, it is often helpful to allow customers to see what the object looks like before the purchase. Unfortunately, previewing the brick at runtime is quite a challenging task. The purpose of our project is to create a shopping website that models the existing ZVerse company website and incorporates dynamic 3D rendering of the brick model with the user­input text. The project can be divided into two main sections. The first part is the development of the webpage that is built on top of a SQL database. From this web application, the user can purchase a product or a brick model while the admin user can upload one. We have carefully design the database to ensure that it met the specific requirements of our web application. For example, there are fields such as isStandard and isVisible that determines whether the brick should be displayed on the site. We also split the product into various school categories so that the user can easily search for the product within their chosen school. Likewise, we make our application as user ­friendly as possible. On the homepage, we give a short tutorial on how to navigate the website. For the custom brick object, we allows users to insert their text and move the text on top of the brick model. We also let them select various font styles. When a potential customer adds an item to the cart, he or she can easily update the quantity or view the inscription text on the shopping cart page. On the admin page, there are small previews of the model for the admin to view. The admin user also has the ability to edit both the title and price of the item. 2 The second part deals with integrating the brick models onto the webpage. We have to consider the directional lights and positions of the brick in x, y coordinates. The brick models comes in different shapes such as rectangular prism, a cube, or a flat plaque. Following our user­ friendly principal, we also enable the user to rotate and zoom on the object. In addition to the brick models itself, we also implement a text layer that aligns perfectly on top of each object. This text layer is made up of three horizontal lines of characters, based upon the value from the three text boxes on the brick display page. A user can input whatever text he or she likes in the textboxes, and the text will be displayed on the brick surface. This is one of the selling features of the webpage because users can now see the preview of the brick in 3D with the text in real time after the user types. Moving the text proves to be even more difficult as we have to make sure that moving the text does not move the underlying brick layer. Eventually, after numerous attempts, we are able to make the brick movable. Overall, the project is successful in implementing the core functionality. With just a few simple clicks on our website, the user is able to view a highly customized brick with text before purchase. In the future, we plan to employ more user customization to the individual brick model such as incorporating various font sizes for the text, allowing greater movement of the brick model, and a greater variety of products.

First Page

1

Last Page

17

Rights

© 2016, Alexa Ann Breeland and Ming Wong

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