The subject says it all...
What programs are good at manipulating this and turning it into a POV
include file, and what kinds of issues are involved?

TIA,
--John

Post a reply to this message

John M. Dlugosz <joh### [at] dlugoszcom> wrote:
: The subject says it all...
: What programs are good at manipulating this and turning it into a POV
: include file, and what kinds of issues are involved?

  http://iki.fi/warp/povVFAQ.html#convertingtopov

-- 
main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
*_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

Thanks for the pointer to the FAQ, but I already tried that.  It says,

Q. How can I convert my scenes from format X to POV-Ray format?
A. You can try WCTV2Pov and Crossroads3D by Keith Rule and 3DWin by Thomas
Baier.

Well, 3DWin didn't work.  It output plain, not smooth, triangles, and the
resulting .inc file couldn't be read by POV 3.1 "Superpatch" anyway!

Crossroads doesn't handle POV in this version, according to the web page.

So, any other ideas?

--John


Nieminen Mika wrote in message <36e2eca5.0@news.povray.org>...
>John M. Dlugosz <joh### [at] dlugoszcom> wrote:
>: The subject says it all...
>: What programs are good at manipulating this and turning it into a POV
>: include file, and what kinds of issues are involved?
>
>  http://iki.fi/warp/povVFAQ.html#convertingtopov
>
>--
>main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
>*_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*-
Warp -*/

Post a reply to this message

In article <36e3010b.0@news.povray.org> , "John M. Dlugosz" 
<joh### [at] dlugoszcom> wrote:

> Well, 3DWin didn't work.  It output plain, not smooth, triangles, and the
> resulting .inc file couldn't be read by POV 3.1 "Superpatch" anyway!

So then why doin't you simply use the official 3.1 version? :-)


    Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

I have had no problems with the output from CrossRoads3d in any
version of Pov I have used. While it was released sometime ago the
syntax has not changed in so long it is not a relevant issue.
WCVT2POV has the limitation that it declares unions of triangles,
smooth or otherwise, but CrossRoads3d being it's successor declares
them as meshes of triangles, smooth or otherwise, and is compatible
with all current versions of Pov. Keith Rule just hasn't updated his
page to reflect the fact that it is compatile with pov v3.1x.

  3Dwin will produce smooth triangles for you. It uses a more
sophisticated method than many other programs in that it evaluates
the vertice junction and faces then decides if it meets the criteria
for smoothing as established by the smoothing angle you choose in the
options section. If you choose a border line amount of smoothing then
it may only produce 20% of the triangles as smooth triangles and the
rest will be as normal triangles. If you set the angle higher it will
start to add more smooth triangles accordingly. There will still be a
mix but there is no reason that you can't have both present inside the
same mesh statement.

  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.

  Using .DXF files off the net in pov is problematic. They generally
contain only face data or vertices data, sometimes both, and conversion
programs are notorious for taking only certain parts of the data for
the conversion. Additionally .DXF files do not contain the original
texturing data that the original modelling package used to produce the
file so usually you get very little control over how many parts of
the file are segmented for texturing individual sections.

  The .3DS file format as well as several others overcame this by using
a completely different method of describing the models characteristics.
3DWin is excellent for maintaining a close approximation of the colors
used in the original, and it will not group everything into one single
mesh that will take but one texture. 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 hope you have found this informative as well as answering your question.

--
Ken

John M. Dlugosz wrote:
> 
> Thanks for the pointer to the FAQ, but I already tried that.  It says,
> 
> Q. How can I convert my scenes from format X to POV-Ray format?
> A. You can try WCTV2Pov and Crossroads3D by Keith Rule and 3DWin by Thomas
> Baier.
> 
> Well, 3DWin didn't work.  It output plain, not smooth, triangles, and the
> resulting .inc file couldn't be read by POV 3.1 "Superpatch" anyway!
> 
> Crossroads doesn't handle POV in this version, according to the web page.
> 
> So, any other ideas?
> 
> --John
> 
> Nieminen Mika wrote in message <36e2eca5.0@news.povray.org>...
> >John M. Dlugosz <joh### [at] dlugoszcom> wrote:
> >: The subject says it all...
> >: What programs are good at manipulating this and turning it into a POV
> >: include file, and what kinds of issues are involved?
> >
> >  http://iki.fi/warp/povVFAQ.html#convertingtopov
> >
> >--
> >main(i){char*_="BdsyFBThhHFBThhHFRz]NFTITQF|DJIFHQhhF";while(i=
> >*_++)for(;i>1;printf("%s",i-70?i&1?"[]":" ":(i=0,"\n")),i/=2);} /*-
> Warp -*/

-- 
Ken Tyler

mailto://tylereng@pacbell.net

Post a reply to this message

I was wrong in my original posting:  The CrossRoads functionality matrix
said that *reading* POV was coming soon.  It had no trouble writing it.

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.


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. While it was released sometime ago the
>syntax has not changed in so long it is not a relevant issue.
>WCVT2POV has the limitation that it declares unions of triangles,
>smooth or otherwise, but CrossRoads3d being it's successor declares
>them as meshes of triangles, smooth or otherwise, and is compatible
>with all current versions of Pov. 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
  mesh {
    triangle {
      <-0.010068, -0.100347, -0.127565>,
      <-0.010400, -0.100338, -0.127578>,
      < -0.009900, -0.094189, -0.128220>
    }
  // ...

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?).

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>.


>  3Dwin will produce smooth triangles for you. It uses a more
>sophisticated method than many other programs in that it evaluates
>the vertice junction and faces then decides if it meets the criteria
>for smoothing as established by the smoothing angle you choose in the
>options section. If you choose a border line amount of smoothing then
>it may only produce 20% of the triangles as smooth triangles and the
>rest will be as normal triangles. If you set the angle higher it will
>start to add more smooth triangles accordingly. There will still be a
>mix but there is no reason that you can't have both present inside the
>same mesh statement.
>
>  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?


>
>  Using .DXF files off the net in pov is problematic. They generally
>contain only face data or vertices data, sometimes both, and conversion
>programs are notorious for taking only certain parts of the data for
>the conversion. Additionally .DXF files do not contain the original
>texturing data that the original modelling package used to produce the
>file so usually you get very little control over how many parts of
>the file are segmented for texturing individual sections.
>
>  The .3DS file format as well as several others overcame this by using
>a completely different method of describing the models characteristics.
>3DWin is excellent for maintaining a close approximation of the colors
>used in the original, and it will not group everything into one single
>mesh that will take but one texture. 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 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

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

After you import the file into xroads you need to go into where you
change the color and chose the smooth option.  This will smooth your
mesh and output smooth traingles when using .pov format.

-Mike

John M. Dlugosz wrote:
> 
> I was wrong in my original posting:  The CrossRoads functionality matrix
> said that *reading* POV was coming soon.  It had no trouble writing it.
> 
> 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.
> 
> 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. While it was released sometime ago the
> >syntax has not changed in so long it is not a relevant issue.
> >WCVT2POV has the limitation that it declares unions of triangles,
> >smooth or otherwise, but CrossRoads3d being it's successor declares
> >them as meshes of triangles, smooth or otherwise, and is compatible
> >with all current versions of Pov. 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
>   mesh {
>     triangle {
>       <-0.010068, -0.100347, -0.127565>,
>       <-0.010400, -0.100338, -0.127578>,
>       < -0.009900, -0.094189, -0.128220>
>     }
>   // ...
> 
> 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?).
> 
> 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>.
> 
> >  3Dwin will produce smooth triangles for you. It uses a more
> >sophisticated method than many other programs in that it evaluates
> >the vertice junction and faces then decides if it meets the criteria
> >for smoothing as established by the smoothing angle you choose in the
> >options section. If you choose a border line amount of smoothing then
> >it may only produce 20% of the triangles as smooth triangles and the
> >rest will be as normal triangles. If you set the angle higher it will
> >start to add more smooth triangles accordingly. There will still be a
> >mix but there is no reason that you can't have both present inside the
> >same mesh statement.
> >
> >  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?
> 
> >
> >  Using .DXF files off the net in pov is problematic. They generally
> >contain only face data or vertices data, sometimes both, and conversion
> >programs are notorious for taking only certain parts of the data for
> >the conversion. Additionally .DXF files do not contain the original
> >texturing data that the original modelling package used to produce the
> >file so usually you get very little control over how many parts of
> >the file are segmented for texturing individual sections.
> >
> >  The .3DS file format as well as several others overcame this by using
> >a completely different method of describing the models characteristics.
> >3DWin is excellent for maintaining a close approximation of the colors
> >used in the original, and it will not group everything into one single
> >mesh that will take but one texture. 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 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

Post a reply to this message

Ken wrote in message <36E34714.CA08E2BC@pacbell.net>...
> 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.


But does the face info include normals?  That is, is one "face" a plain
triangle (three points) or a smooth triangle (three points and three
normals, as in POV and OpenGL)?  For that matter, how do mesh-based editing
programs define such things?  I see a mesh of triangles, but how does it
know those approximate real surfaces?  Or are they just facets, period, and
it uses the joining angle idea like the import setting you told me about, to
smooth things implicitly (which would make it difficult to represent a sharp
edge that is below the critical angle!)

'learning,
--John

Post a reply to this message

Hi,


>
> Well, 3DWin didn't work.  It output plain, not smooth, triangles, and the
> resulting .inc file couldn't be read by POV 3.1 "Superpatch" anyway!
>

If your resulting mesh is flat you have to set the smoothing angle in the pov
export option dialog.
High value produces less flat triangles.

It could be that big dxf meshes needs lot of time to import. DXF is a very
inefficient file format.

If it is possible please use 3ds.

Anyway, next version of 3DWin will improve the speed of DXF imports.

-tb

Post a reply to this message