Thanks, but I don’t think I have the energy to learn HTML and CSS while there’s still so much to learn about Swift and SwiftUI. It’s hard enough finding a time when the migraines are a bit less intense so I can work on programming. I used Flux to generate my website, and I’ll probably use another website design program to redo the site.
Later today, I’m getting my second I.V. Infusion for the migraines. I felt better for a couple of days after the first infusion. I’m hoping that the effects last longer this time. Wish me luck!
Setup a SIP-Account with a Voicemail Box. Anonymous calls are dropped and everything else is forwarded via Email. This is how I handle everything, what needs a phone number.
It’s almost time for my third infusion. The second one worked no better than the first, but it was the minimum dose, so the dosage is being increased. I hope it helps since the migraines have been fierce lately.
In the meantime, I’ve converted two more of my Xojo apps to Swift/SwiftUI, including one with some very detailed drawing code. I’m now working on my fourth app, the companion to RayTrace that handles thick lenses. I’ve asked my wife to design icons for me so I can submit everything to the App Store. All of these apps will be free since the target audience is small.
After I complete my current app, I want to challenge myself to do a more complex app with animation. I wrote and almost completed a fun app in Objective-C and Interface Builder years ago, and it would be a good learning experience to recreated it in Swift/SwiftUI, then add new capabilities.
I’m also working on recreating my web site. Most of it’s complete, but I keep getting sidetracked. Because I’m not ready to start learning web programming, I’m just using Elements, the successor to RapidWeaver. I don’t need anything fancy. If I start offering paid apps, I’ll learn new tools and upgrade the web site into something more professional.
You have mentioned “RayTrace” a few times… is this Raytrace in the sense of 3D scenes like Doom/Wolfenstien? If so, have you looked at SceneKit. it removes about 110% of the math, and is super fast
Hi Dave. This isn’t ray tracing like in 3D graphics. That involves huge numbers of light rays in complex scenes.
What I’m referring to is geometric optics ray tracing, as taught to optometrists as part of their optics courses so they can understand ophthalmic lenses (and the optics of the eye). It’s much simpler, using a few representative light rays. Geometric ray tracing is used to determine the properties of an image produced by a lens. It’s a way of determining an image’s location and size graphically for an object at a given distance from a lens of a given power, although the same thing can also be done with standard optics equations. My RayTrace app does both side by side for simple lenses.
I hope to make a series of ray tracing apps. The first one, RayTrace, is for the simplest case: a thin lens (which can be treated like a single surface) in air (to simplify the calculations) with light rays with light rays near the X-axis of the lens (avoiding aberrations that can be caused by eccentric light rays). My current one uses thick lenses with two distinct surfaces that can refract the light to different degrees, also in air. These both are well-suited for optometric education. Then I might progress to even more complex cases, such as lenses with different media on each side (e.g., air on one side, water on the other) or non-spherical lens surfaces. I’ll have to see how my head holds up.
Definitely! I’m just waiting for icons to be designed by my wife, plus two more improvements to the apps, before submitting to the App Store.
The improvements needed are:
A better experience validating the input parameters to ensure that they’re in the correct range (they’re not accepted, but I need to add feedback to the user, maybe an alert?).
Onboarding for new users. Sure there’s the help system, but I don’t want new users to stare at the app screen and have to figure out what to do. Although I’ve gotten by without using third-party SwiftUI code, I may have to compromise here.