Ok, i've added it to the latest release. Hope it helps.

I've added a 3DS loader, some more options to the Primitives-class and made some minor fixes and improvements.

Good question...one should think that it's easy to find some specifications at least for ASC, because it is a quite popular format (It's an ASCII export format of older versions of 3DStudio). But i have to admit, that i couldn't find any...the thing is that ASC is easy to understand by looking at an ASC-file in a text editor. jPCT's ASC loader doesn't use all the information an ASC-file offers. What's used is the vertex list (x,y,z and u and v if given) and the face list. A single file may contain a number of vertex and face lists. That's all...should be quite simple to understand by studying such a file.
I included an example file in an archive here: http://www.jpct.net/download/asc_and_jaw.zip

JAW is an outdated format of a discontinued engine that i'm using for historical reasons. It's basically a stripped down version of ASC which contains only one large vertex- and face list. It's still supported, because i own some simple JAW-objects myself that i would like to use and it may be handy as a quick-and-dirty format that your own applications may write.

I know that this is not very satisfying...some more advanced loaders for other formats would be nice, but i'm currently doing other things with the engine. (To be honest, i'm still waiting for someone to write them for me, because i don't have fun writing loaders... :lol: ...just kidding...but it would be nice though).

This version is the first version of jPCT that offers hardware acceleration as an option (via OpenGL and using LWJGL). Adding OpenGL support required to do a lot of changes in some parts of the programming, so i decided to release this version as beta 1 and not as a regular release. The documentation reflects the changes but some parts will most likely need further work...anyway, here is 0.83 beta 1!!
I replaced the terrain example applet with a terrain application that makes use of the new OpenGL support (can be run in software as well).
The OpenGL support should be transparent to code written for older versions of jPCT, i.e. if you're not interested in OpenGL support but in the other features and fixes this version offers, just replace your old version of jPCT with the new one...it should work as usual without changes. If it doesn't, please let me know... :wink:
set- and getCamera() in the Camera.class are deprecated now. They have been replaced by set- and getPosition().

Edit: A slightly updated version has been uploaded that fixes a problem with drivers that return a refresh-rate of 0 Hz.

The same example using the new OpenGL support (not yet released!):

jPCT tries to hide the 3D specific stuff from the user as much as possible while maintaining an easy to use API. I hope that it not only tries this but achieves it to a degree. If it doesn't...feel free to ask...

...it's 2003 now. Happy new year!

Well, i'm not really happy with the GPL as i'm not really happy with the idea to release the sources. If following projects are GPLed or not doesn't matter that much to me. My point is, that i don't want to see a bunch of variants of jPCT floating around...GPLed or not...and that i can't say "hey, just update to the new version and it'll work" anymore.
Isn't it possible to enhance the license (if required) in a way that basically says: This project is released under the GPL with all the bells and whistles but this particular part of it (jPCT for example) is not and comes with its own license (which it already has), albeit it's part of the distribution/project. I don't have a single problem with jPCT being included in whatever projects, but don't like to be forced to release the sources.