There's no "standard" coordinate system, so the choice is arbitrary.
However, an examination of the Transporter mesh in Elite revealed
that the mesh was designed for a left-handed coordinate system. We
can compensate for that trivially in the Elite visualizer, but we
might as well match what they're doing. (The only change required
in the code is a couple of sign changes on the Z coordinate, and an
update to the rotation matrix.)
This also downsizes Matrix44 to Matrix33, exposes the rotation mode
enum, and adds a left-handed ZYX rotation mode.
This does mean that meshes that put the front at +Z will show their
backsides initially, since we're now oriented as if we're flying
the ships rather than facing them. I considered adding a 180-degree
Y rotation (with a tweak to the rotation matrix handedness to correct
the first rotation axis) to have them facing by default, but figured
that might be confusing since +Z is supposed to be away.
Anybody who really wants it to be the other way can trivially flip
the coordinates in their visualizer (negate xc/zc).
The Z coordinates in the visualization test project were flipped so
that the design is still facing the viewer at rotation (0,0,0).
Handle the remaining visualization editor UI controls, except for
the "test" button. Save/restore wireframe animations in the
project file. Changed the preview from a 1-pixel-wide line drawn
by a path half the window size to a 2-pixel-wide line drawn by a
path the exact window size.
Moved X/Y/Z rotation out of the plugin, since it has nothing to do
with the plugin at all. (Backface removal and perspective projection
are somewhat based on the data contents, as is the choice for
whether or not they should be options.)
Added sliders for X/Y/Z rotation. Much more fun that way.
Renamed VisualizationAnimation to VisBitmapAnimation, as we're not
going to use it for wireframe animation. Created a new class to
hold wireframe animation data, which is really just a reference to
the IVisualizationWireframe so we can generate an animated GIF
without having to pry open the plugin again.
Renamed the "frame-delay-msec" parameter, which should start with
an underscore to ensure it doesn't clash with plugin parameters.
If we don't find it with an underscore we check again without for
backward compatibility.
Added some more plumbing. Updated visualization set edit dialog,
which now does word-wrapping correctly in the buttons. Added Alt+V
as the hotkey for Create/Edit Visualization Set, which allows you
to double-tap it to leap into the visualization editor.
Experimented with Path drawing, which looks like it could do just
what we need.
Also, show the file size in KB in the code/data/junk breakdown at the
bottom of the window. (Technically it's KiB, but that looked funny.)
