[Bf-committers] [GSoC 2018]Idea -- Fast Import / Export for selected formats

[Paul Melis]

Hi Campbell,

On 08-03-18 04:48, Campbell Barton wrote:
> Supporting C/C++ in an add-on means there is technically nothing
> stopping someone from bundling an entire library.
> 
> While it's possible this makes sense in some cases, it introduces
> issues with having to properly integrate a library into Blender
> (workaround constraints in the API, even bugs).
> Notice the add-on linked misses support for things currently working
> in our add-on.
> While it could be fixed, that add-on is basically moving from Python
> to C which is quite a different project.

Thats' true. I actually didn't spend too much time on the add-on, as I 
mostly use the bundled script (mesh_readply.py) directly in other 
scripts that need to load data from PLY. Interactive import happens a 
lot less (and even then I frequently use blender -P mesh_readply.py...).

> For the GSOC I rather we keep a Python reference implementation with a
> C fast-path which is typically useful for parsing arrays of geometry.

I will be interested to see how the GSOC work pans out. Going through 
Python, even when being able to pass arrays/buffers is still somewhat 
suboptimal in the current setup. Setting up a Mesh with UVs and such 
takes a bit of work and having to use 4 indices per triangle to pass to 
foreach_set('vertices_raw',...) is unfortunate. I didn't look into it, 
but is passing polygons with more than 4 vertices even possible, or 
would you need to tessellate the geometry first yourself?

> PLY and STL are simple enough formats that I'm skeptical of the value
> of using 3rd party libraries.

Fair point. STL is a no-brainer to implement oneself. For PLY I used 
rply because it exists and I didn't want to spend time on writing a PLY 
reader (and it supports both binary and ascii variants of .ply). The API 
is actually a bit quirky, with all the callbacks.

Regards,
Paul

-- 

Paul Melis
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