I am to prepare a large project on stereophonic aids for the blind - special tools which can translate a 3D enviroment to stereo sound patterns. For this I have to write a software simulator, which would allow a user to move around simple virtual enviroments and have various objects he encounters translated into sounds (so that technically he could close his eyes and still not bump into walls).
The problem is I am not an experienced enough programmer to write such an engine from scratch (my experience is limited to visual C++ and C++ builder, and very simple Windows applications). I wish to be able to concentrate more on the various sound codes, but now I’m losing sleep over the 3d engine I have to prepare.
I know there is a lot of open source 3d engines out there, but I have absolutely no idea how to choose one. It needs to be simple enough for me to understand in about 2 months, so I can start on adding the sound coding. A “level editor” tool would be great, and some sort of already written FPP engine for walking around. Absolutely no special lighting or shading effects are needed, as I plan to use just simplest shading and lighting.
My professor sugested to me using VRML, but almost everyone else I know discourages that, and advises me to go for a C++/OpenGl combo. Hopefully someone on this forum could point me to a right source, or lend me some valuable advice.
