John M. Dlugosz wrote:


> However, it took over 21 minutes to 'Open' the DXF file, which is not very
> practical.  It output plain triangles, not smooth triangles.  So I wonder if
> the lack of smoothness has to do with the way the DXF file was made?  In
> another iteration, Mick Hazelgrove [mha### [at] mindaswinternetcouk] had sent
> me .INC files from Poser data, and they were all made with smooth triangles.
> This time he sent me a (much smaller!) DXF file, and I've been trying to
> convert it without much success.

  The smoothness that you will find in a dxf file will vary entirely upon
the program that produced them. If the original had 15 faces to produce
a sphere then it will look very faceted. If it had 600 faces then it will
become much spherical plus smooth triangles can be used to enhance the
overall smoothness even more. If you try to smooth the 15 face sphere
to match that of the 600 face sphere it would in all likelyhood become
distorted or would look smoother but still not spherical.

 
> Ken wrote in message <36E30FBE.7B04DBCA@pacbell.net>...
> >I have had no problems with the output from CrossRoads3d in any
> >version of Pov I have used.
< snip >
> > Keith Rule just hasn't updated his
> >page to reflect the fact that it is compatile with pov v3.1x.
 
> Yes, the Crossroads output, which looks like this:
 
> object {
>   // _X1_X2_G0

The _X1_X2_G0 above is one ting about crossroads I don't like. Many
3d file formats allow named discriptions of each part in a 3d file.
Many artists are very concientious about providing discriptions that
make it easier to identifyy the parts so you can manipulate the file
to wuit your needs. Particularly in Pov you want the options to attach
textures to the individual pieces. Crossroads strips these identifiers
and uses it's own wierd naming convention like seen in the above example.
Why he did this is beyond me but it is a very unattractive feature


> was read by POV 3.1 "Superpatch" with no problem, once I stripped out the
> rest of the stuff CrossRoads wrote that I didn't ask for.  It made a POV
> file complete with textures, not a INC file containing just the mesh and a
> #declare for me to use it with.  Any suggestions on how to operate it?
> There is no help file or instructions of any kind, just an EXE and copies of
> POV's standard INC files (why?).

  I don't remember if there is a feature in crossroads to turn on and
off the statistics and default texture features like he had in wcvt2pov
and he also eliminated the ability to rename the colors for individual
pieces and the ability to rename the parts. wcvt2pov was much more versitle
in this regard.
  I still use it when I need to positivily make changes to the model before
exporting to pov and then internaly will go in and change all of the unions
to meshes for the sake of memory management.
  I don't recall ever seeing a detailed reference to it's use. The
experienced user basicaly learns through trial and error. I have pretty
learned the same is true with 3DWin but it at least offeres some online
help.

 
> It also took more than 21 minutes of CPU time to open the file!!!  So I
> don't think it's going to work for me <sigh>.

  I have several resources available to me to convert .dxf files. If you
would like to send it to me I can try to convert into something you can
use. In the process I might discover for you what the problem you are
having might be. I have the program AutoCad 14 on my system which is the
grandfather of the .dxf file format. If it chokes on it then there might
be something wrong with the way the file was exported from the package
that modeled or converted it to what you have. It certainly should not
take 21 minutes to import the file unless it is in excess of 10megs
in size. Sometimes the really big files can and will take some time to
convert all of the faces to convertable information.
 

> >  The other programs I have used have only two options. They either use
> >all triangles or they use all smooth triangles. 3Dwin on the other hand
> >only uses smooth triangles as needed to give the smoothing angle that you
> >the user decides is necessary for your model. This has the advantage
> >of not stressing areas that don't need smoothing and it also aids in
> >file size reduction since regular triangles require considerably less
> >data in the scene file to represent the model.
> 
> Interesting.  So it's a matter of choosing suitable options on the export
> (or on the import?).  I thought that vertex normals would be part of the DXF
> format.  So Is DXF flat facets only?

 In 3DWin you set the smoothing angle in the export options window.

 DXf has the ability to store either face or line info or both. Sometimes
the program exporting the model will only export one or the other sometimes
both. Conversion programs also have their own way to handle the data in the
dxf file and it varies with who wrote it. 


> > ... DXF files are notorious for this.
> >Several other file formats offer far more versatility than the .DXF
> >format and for that reason when shopping for models this limitation in
> >the DXF file format should be kept in mind.
 
> I'm finding this very interesting.  So what's the best way to go from Poser
> 3 to POV?
> I don't know how Mick created this DXF file, but once I know better, 3-D
> meshes I create myself can be set up better.  To this end, any advise is
> much appreciated.

 I would suggest the .3ds file format if he has it availble as an option.
It has been my experience that it remains as true to the original as
possible. VRML models also do a good job but there are something like
3 or 4 different file specifications now and it's difficult to find
conversion prgrams that handle them all.

 
> >
> > I hope you have found this informative as well as answering your question.
> 
> Is there documentation on the .3DS format?  If .3DS is "3-D Studio" then
> Poser has that listed on its export options.  If that's the best format to
> use, it might be handy to write a Perl script to do the conversion if
> nothing out there is (1) simple, and (2) uses all the relevant data.
> 
> --John

.3ds is one of the 3-D studio file export specifications as is the
.MAX file extention. I have as yet seen no conversin program that
can convert the .MAX files to something usable by other programs.

I seem to recall seeing in an faq recently a list of 3d file formats and
where to get the specs. Take a look at the FAQ below. If it's not in that
section there will be a link at the bottom to go to the other 3 parts
of the FAQ. It is most likely in part 4 but I saw a lot of data that day
and may be incorrect in my recollection of it location.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/graphics/fileformats-faq/part3/index.html



-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

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