Colleagues of mine are using Java3D for visualizing results of finite element simulations. The problem is that Java3D seems to be somehow dead, and it is a pain on OSX. This is one of the reasons we are looking for alternatives. Quite a lot of work has gone into our current implementation based on Java3D, so the question is how much effort it would be to move away from Java3D. JOGL is one option, but looks like a lot of work.
Has anyone suggestions for alternatives? Any experiences with such a migration?
JOGL provides a direct access to OpenGL functions. These functions are mostly low level draw functions, and you have to deal with the 'state machine' nature of OpenGL while you are programming.
Java3D abstracts this state machine. It allows you to define a tree of graphic objects, placed in a virtual scene, and rendered by a camera. The manipulation of these graphic objects is easier with such a tree structure. Then, it's up to Java3D to walk through this tree and call the OpenGL drawing functions.
This kind of library is called a scenegraph. There are many scenegraph libraries in java, some are implemented on top of JOGL. I don't have a list, but this keyword will help you in your research.
In our project, we tried 3 or 4 different libraries, but no one filled all our requirements. We ended writing our own scenegraph library (on top of JOGL).