[x3d-public] Node.js for X3DJSAIL. Beginnings in X3DJSONLD. typecast issues

[Brutzman, Donald (Don) (CIV)]

Hi John.  Thanks for this interesting example.

As the error logs indicate, accessor methods using double types are not provided for X3D fields having SFFloat/MFFloat types in the current X3DJSAIL implementation.  Javadoc confirmation:

	http://www.web3d.org/specifications/java/javadoc/org/web3d/x3d/jsail/Shape/MaterialObject.html#setAmbientIntensity-float-
	http://www.web3d.org/specifications/java/javadoc/org/web3d/x3d/jsail/Shape/MaterialObject.html#setAmbientIntensity-org.web3d.x3d.jsail.fields.SFFloatObject-

Java compilation issues warnings when source code tries putting a double into a float, so that the programmer knows a reduction in precision is occurring.

In a source program, a programmer can address this and silence warnings by deliberate casting, i.e. saying something like

	myMaterialObject.setAmbientIntensity((float) 0.123456789d);

Two general solution approaches would seem to present themselves:

a. keep X3DJSAIL accessor methods strict so that authors (or conversion tools) must explicitly handle type-casting in a deliberate fasion.
b. make X3DJSAIL overloaded with various types so that programmers don't know  and aren't notified when downcasting and loss of precision occurs.

Given that X3D presentation might have really strict usage requirements (for example CAD parts fitting together) the current X3DJSAILdesign is to stay strict throughout.  Downcasting and type conversion is certainly possible but must be deliberately accomplished by authors.

Yes agreed that JavaScript and JSON are always double precision.  This is unavoidably allowed by X3D ECMAScript language binding and X3D JSON encoding regardless of X3D Architecture and X3DUOM requirements.

It will be interesting to see if you can adapt/wrap things as indicated.  We will likely to again face the exact same issue in a Python binding, since the Python language puts a high premium on completely hiding typecasting from the programmer.

A future design option might be to provide such overloading, perhaps even selectively deployed as x3djsail-strict and x3djsail lenient builds.

As with JSON, we don't particularly want JavaScript programmers to have to worry about this all the time.

Good luck!

On 10/17/2018 8:12 PM, John Carlson wrote:
> I am beginning to port X3DJSAIL to Node.js, using the java npm module to interface node.js to java.  I have seen a tiny bit of success, but am beginning to see hard problems that can might be solved by modifying X3DJSAIL, perhaps significantly, or undesirably, due to JavaScript or node limitations, not found in Nashorn.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Error: Could not find method "setAmbientIntensity(java.lang.Double)" on class "class org.web3d.x3d.jsail.Shape.MaterialObject". Possible matches:
> 
>    public org.web3d.x3d.jsail.Shape.MaterialObject org.web3d.x3d.jsail.Shape.MaterialObject.setAmbientIntensity(org.web3d.x3d.jsail.fields.SFFloatObject)
> 
>    public org.web3d.x3d.sai.Shape.Material org.web3d.x3d.jsail.Shape.MaterialObject.setAmbientIntensity(float)
> 
>    public org.web3d.x3d.jsail.Shape.MaterialObject org.web3d.x3d.jsail.Shape.MaterialObject.setAmbientIntensity(float)
> 
>      at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\coderextreme\X3DJSONLD\src\main\node\net\coderextreme\data\flipp.js:27:75)
> 
>      at Module._compile (module.js:652:30)
>      at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:663:10)
>      at Module.load (module.js:565:32)
>      at Function.Module._load (module.js:497:3)
>      at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:693:10)
>      at bootstrap_node.js:609:3
> 
> Note that all JavaScript numbers are doubles I believe.  I will have to investigate the npm module to see if it supports floats.
> 
> Indeed it does, the syntax is:
> 
> |var f = java.newFloat(3.14);|
> 
> Back to work.
> 
> This should probably be mentioned in any JavaScript API which uses X3DJSAIL.
> 
> John


all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman