[NTLUG:Discuss] x3d to something conversion

[Steve Baker]

Rick Cook wrote:
> All,
> 
> I have some x3d files that I need to convert to some other format, 
> preferably Wavefront .obj.

It might help you to know that X3D was formerly called VRML-2000. Hence
a VRML loader might work.

However, it's not a really popular 3D format and none of the 3D tools
I use on a regular basis seem to support it.  Convertors are a pain to
write because the X3D format supports a bunch of useless primitives
like cubes, spheres, cylinders, torii and polyhedra - as well as the
more obvious spline patches and polygons...which are all you really need
for practical work.  Converting all of those higher level primitives
and getting their textures placed exactly under all of the complex rules
that VRML supports is really painful.

Hence it's not a really well supported format and I'm not aware of any
OpenSource tools that can load it.

 > I have done some googling but don't really
> know enough about the 3d scene to know where to look. Any suggestions? 
> Obviously, my preference would be Linux tools, however, MacOS would also 
> be acceptable.

Regrettably, the tool that's most likely to work is 'polytrans' which
is a Windows-only tool that costs $400!  They claim it'll run under
WINE on Linux platforms or 'SoftWindows' under MacOS.

     http://www.okino.com/conv/platform.htm

It's possible that either Maya or Lightwave has an importer - both of
those have native Linux ports - but both are in the thousands of dollars
price range.

There is a project called XJ3D which adds X3D support to Java3D.  I
suppose you might be able to write a Java program to load X3D using
that library and some other kind of Java resource to write the file
back out in some other format that have Java3D support....dunno.

---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
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