P1

Programming Assignment 1: Fltk / LibTarga practice

The fact that this page is named "P1" makes it a little ambiguous, but you need to turn this program into the "A1" handin directory.

Due: 9/19
TA In Charge: Yu-Chi

Why?

To get ready for the upcoming project, we want to make sure everyone is able to do the basic mechanics for doing programming projects in the class. The idea is that by forcing people to try these things out early, we'll catch problems before the project.

Specifically, we want to make sure that everyone can:

1. Write programs in C++
2. Read and write images in Targa format (which we will use for projects). This probably means that you will need to learn about LibTarga.
3. Deal with opening windows and handling mouse input. This probably means that you'll need to learn about FlTk.
4. Follow the rules on handing in programs (see Turning In Programs)

So, we're basically asking everyone to write the minimal program that achieves these 4 goals.

What?

You must write a program that meets a few basic requirements:

1. It must be able to read in a Targa image (we recommend using LibTarga - see the tutorials).
2. It must be able to display a Targa image in a window.
3. It must be able to change the image in response to user input.
4. It must be able to write out an image in targa format.

To get the full grade, your program only has to do these four things. Your program could be very simple. The goal here is not really to show off your graphics knowledge, but to give you practice on the mechanics. The projects will be coming soon enough.

Of course, if you want to write a program that does something cool, that's great. Seeing cool programs makes things more fun to the instructor and TAs.

Pay close attention to the Turning In Programs! Part of the goal in this assignment is to make sure you can follow these rules.

How will this be evaluated?

We will check to make sure that your program actually fullfills the 4 requirements.

Part of your grade will come from following directions. We will deduct points if you don't follow the rules. We might be more flexible later, but for now, we want to make sure everyone understands and can follow the rules.

Other notes

The tutorials for the class should show you how to do this assignment. If you have problems, be sure to ask the TA. The programming project will require you to do everything in this assignment, and a lot more.

Technically, you do not need to use LibTarga. However, we strongly recommend it. We cannot help you if you choose to use another library. You need to be able to read and write Targa format images for the project because we will use this format for our test images. See the Main.FAQ.

We strongly recommend that you use FlTk for windowing (see the Main.FAQ). While you can use any windowing toolkit (so long as it runs on the Storm computers), we cannot help you with other toolkits. For this assignment, you probably don't need very much from a windowing toolkit, but in the future, you will.