Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a bit of the VERA project to do with 3D visualisation of archaeological data. Now, I'm no stranger to 3D graphics, but it's been a while since I really did any, and there's been several advances^* in the intervening time. There are a number of requirements for this work, but one is for some degree of platform-independence. I won't go into the details, but I'm working on the principle that Java is probably the thing to use. However, if it is the right thing to use, it's being distinctly uncooperative.