Well, after I installed Turbo Delphi, my first happy surprise was that it is similar enough to Visual Studio (which I use all day at work) that I was able to get a feel for it pretty quickly. I didn't know the Delphi syntax (for...next loops, case statements, file I/O, etc.), but my second happy surprise was that no matter what I needed to do, you had usually already done it somewhere in FCB. So I just copied off of you!
I had already worked out the logic for the KT3 parser before I mentioned it the other day, so basically it was just a matter of typing it all in and working out the bugs. The part that I'm finding tricky is the GUI stuff....some of the user-interface features are similar to Visual Studio, but some aren't. The Internet sure comes in handy! I think my new GUI (for capturing the path to the user's installation of KnotTyer3D.exe) is finished, but I realized that we'll need an INI file to store the path so that the user only needs to point to KnotTyer3D.exe one time. Still need to finish that part.
Re the parsed files, good first attempts. They demonstrate the need to use lookahead/lookback to be able to angle the curves downwards if the next junction is under or upwards if it is over, it is the curve which is transiting the third dimension rather than just the cord going behind the crossing. You have transitioned around the 2D bends very effectively, can you transition in the third dimension as smoothly?
Yeah, I tried to tweak some of the transitions a bit after looking at the results, but I decided to focus on finishing up the user-interface pieces so that others can try it out and provide some feedback and ideas for improvement. I need to play with KnotTyer3D some more in order to figure how to improve the display.
The Mobius TH was very much a surprise for me when I loaded it into KT3. It was easy to follow in FCB, but in KT3 I was unable to follow it at all, a serious case of 'less is more', however, you must have been well satisfied when your parser popped out that file.
Turning on the "Rainbow" option in KnotTyer3D helps a lot, but I don't see a way to set that option automatically when I pop it up. Also, the "Zooms" values should all be 1...sometimes one of them is set to 2 when KnotTyer3D pops up.
For the release version, how about we choose a name which is descriptive of the program's functionality? KnotDiagrammer.exe, perhaps. Something which will call to mind what the program does. Also, I'd like to figure out how to get it to scale itself to different screen resolutions.
Dave