[Visualpython-users] Advice for a newcomer

[Jay S. <jsh...@gm...>]

Hello!  I'm teaching a Python programming class to some science
students, and have one student who wants to do a project visualizing
the level of water in a lake as various other factors change
(rainfall, incoming stream volume, etc).

I'd originally thought vpython would be a good option for this
visualization, but we're having trouble figuring out how to show the
level of water in the lake.  What we have so far is drawing the
outline of the lake using a string of points and drawing rectangles
between pairs of points down to the bed of the lake.

Our first try at showing the water level was to use those same points
and draw a blue plane (e.g. convex) with them.  That works fine as
long as there aren't any concave bits in the lake outline.  Since the
lake he wants to model does have concave bits, the water then shows
outside the lake walls.

Are we missing an easy way of filling a given outline with a color at
a particular z depth?  Or of clipping a plane to the outline?

Thanks for any advice,
Jay

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