Hi,

I was wondering. Why doesn't PovRay support .obj files (to import in the
scenes), I am actually not certain if it really doesn't. But currently when
I make a 3D model that requires a modeller and when I try saving it as
..pov, I see how big the file becomes as compared to .obj. Since the .pov
are text-based this will naturally be always bigger. It is indeed efficient
if I can work with a more compressed file (as I will usually not need to
alter the object within povray, at most I will put a texture but this does
not require me to edit the output obj file). So how is this question
answered? "Why doesn't PovRay support Obj file, or any other compressed
form of graphic model?"

Sincerely,
Jose Capco

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ShiJie wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was wondering. Why doesn't PovRay support .obj files (to import in the
> scenes), I am actually not certain if it really doesn't. But currently when
> I make a 3D model that requires a modeller and when I try saving it as
> ..pov, I see how big the file becomes as compared to .obj. Since the .pov
> are text-based this will naturally be always bigger.

.obj files are text format as well - they will not be significantly 
smaller than a mesh2.  If the files your modeller generates are much 
larger the program is simply inefficient.  Concerning why POV-Ray does 
not support any binary geometry files read:

http://tag.povray.org/povQandT/filesQandT.html#binarymeshdata

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 23 Sep. 2004 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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in news:cm3ccc$mgr$1@chho.imagico.de Christoph Hormann wrote:

> .obj files are text format as well - they will not be significantly 
> smaller than a mesh2.  If the files your modeller generates are much 
> larger the program is simply inefficient

If the exported mesh's are the same, yes, but there are programs that 
export different things when they export to .pov or .obj Exports to pov 
are always triangle mesh's exports to obj can often be polygon mesh'. It 
is not nessesceraly so that the mesh's are tesselated.
An other cause can be that when exporting from for example Silo, the pov 
export is the subdivided and tesselated mesh and the obj export is always 
the unsubdivided untesselated mesh.

Ingo

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Christoph Hormann wrote
 > .obj files are text format as well - they will not be significantly
 > smaller than a mesh2.

The .obj file format is not restricted to polygons, it allows e.g. NURBS 
as well. However, I think that most programs that allow importing .obj 
files expect triangles or polygons. Other .obj files may be a lot 
smaller, but less portable.

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Christoph Hormann <chr### [at] gmxde> wrote:

> .obj files are text format as well - they will not be significantly
> smaller than a mesh2.  If the files your modeller generates are much
> larger the program is simply inefficient.  Concerning why POV-Ray does
> not support any binary geometry files read:
>
> http://tag.povray.org/povQandT/filesQandT.html#binarymeshdata
>
> Christoph


So, how am I going to put in some .obj file that someone gives me (or that I
made) into a PovRay scene? Should I be converting them? (Crossroad does the
job? or is there a better option?).

Sincerely,
Jose Capco

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ShiJie wrote:
> 
> So, how am I going to put in some .obj file that someone gives me (or that I
> made) into a PovRay scene? Should I be converting them? (Crossroad does the
> job? or is there a better option?).

There are various programs that do such a conversion (and maybe it would 
be possible to do this with a sed oneliner as well).  Quite commonly 
used and very flexible is Poseray:

http://user.txcyber.com/~sgalls/

(which runs fine in Wine in case you are using Linux).

Christoph

-- 
POV-Ray tutorials, include files, Sim-POV,
HCR-Edit and more: http://www.tu-bs.de/~y0013390/
Last updated 23 Sep. 2004 _____./\/^>_*_<^\/\.______

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