[Bf-committers] Universal 3D support?

Richard Shaw hobbes1069 at gmail.com
Mon Oct 10 16:19:05 CEST 2011


On Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Toni Alatalo <antont at kyperjokki.fi> wrote:
> On Oct 7, 2011, at 11:18 PM, Richard Shaw wrote:
>> Are there any plans for Universal 3D (U3D) support?
>> I was trying to find a way to create a 3D PDF with open source
>> software but Blender doesn't appear to support it. It's an open
>> standard so I figure the lack of support is for a more technical
>
> Often with open source the reason for something not existing is simply that no one has implemented it. That is usually because there hasn't been great need.
[SNIP]
> Some people have apparently brought things to U3D from Blender via OBJ export to MeshLab (open source) and, with good success, proprieatery DAZ: http://artandlogic.blogspot.com/2008/08/blender-to-acrobat-3d.html .. back in 2008.

I'll have to try that.


> I guess Collada and perhaps X3D are more useful to people so U3D just hasn't been made. Probably is doable if really needed.
>
> This comment from already 2009 says that an extended version of Acrobat has later added Collada support: "Using the COLLADA exporter and Adobe Acrobat Pro Extended, one can create pdf documents that include the 3D model, enabling users to rotate the model directly in the pdf viewer, as well as exploring the object tree and see all the parts names." http://labs.solidworks.com/Products/Product.aspx?name=colladaexport . Also Photoshop and Mac OS X Preview etc. support Collada, so perhaps that's where the world is converging instead.

Well, that's still using Acrobat Pro which is about $350. I was trying
to stay FOSS.

I did have some success using Meshlab. It exports a UD3 file with a
simple latex script and then you can use pdflatex to create the PDF.
It works but the default orientation of the model is strange and I get
a divide by 0 error if I try to change it.

I exported a COLLADA version but it does not export a latex file for
embedding in a PDF.

Thanks,
Richard


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