[Bf-committers] XML-based file format for blender

[bf-committers@blender.org]

On 12 Jun 2004 at 15:07, Ton Roosendaal wrote:

> Hi Gregor,
> 
> Thanks! I'll put it on my todolist to check on. I still think it would  
> be a very powerful addition to Blender, especially when (as I remenber)  
> it gets close compatibility to X3D...
> 
> -Ton-

As per ton's request on todays sunday meeting I'm taking a look at 
these sources. All the changes involve a rewrite of writefile.c.
He changed the file writing to wrap the binary values of the structs 
in xml tags. This makes the xml file really only readable for 
blender. It works but keeping his code as is means either replacing 
the current binary file format or duplicating them with different 
function names. in a new writexmlfile.c (or something like)

Additionally he has not written any thing for reading the file back 
into blender. so export only is supported

Before proceeding any further in the project I'd recommend  making 
some decisions about implementing and how we want to use the 
functionality.

1. What do we intend the format to be used for? Why do we want it? 
(this goes into deciding question 2 below)

2. Do we want the xml to be in a standard 3d format or a blender 
specific one?

3. Is it to be an export option or a save as option?

I don't think he defined an xml spec for his file format he just used 
what writefile already output. If I were implementing this I'd use a 
predefined spec like x3d (with custom extensions for what x3d doesn't 
support) and or I'd define a spec for the file before I started 
coding. X3D provides extensibility so things like screen layouts and 
so forth could be implemented in that and still make the file 
importable into other apps out of the box. Also being able to read 
the x3d format would make another app's X3D exports importable almost 
out of the box.