On 31-5-2015 5:26, Tony Stecca wrote:
> Le_Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> wrote:
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>> Le 30/05/2015 04:29, Tony Stecca a écrit :
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>>> my name is Tony Stecca.  I work for an online private school in
>>> Ontario, Canada. We create 3D molecular models using software
>>> called Avogadro.  It exports 3D models as POV-ray files.  I've had
>>> good success animating the models in the POV-ray editor and
>>> exporting pngs to make a video.  However, our video producer would
>>> like to import these models into Adobe AfterEffects, likely via
>>> Cinema4D, as .obj files.
>>>
>>> We've been able to do test imports of POV-ray's that are based on
>>> mesh objects. That works.  However, the models from Avogadro aren't
>>> mesh(?).  The are mathematical objects like cylinders and spheres.
>>> Can I convert my models to mesh objects?
>>
>> I guess you mean "automatically", right ?
>>
>> you can try to have a look at the capability of crossroads (Windows 95
>> to Windows 2000)
>>
>> http://animatricity.com/pages/downloads/3d_apps/crossroads.htm
>>
>> The homepage for the developper is lost in limbo, but the provided url
>> provide a downloadable zip. Assumes your own risk about it (I do not
>> have windows)
>>
>> The syntax of povray for sphere and cylinder is stable enough that it
>> might be supported, even on current output of avogadro.
>>
>> Short of that, and unless someone provide a different answer, I would
>> refer you to the knowledge base
>>
>> http://wiki.povray.org/content/Knowledgebase:Files_and_formats#Topic_2
>>
>> There is echo of 3D23D program, but I have no link for it (seems lost
>> too).
>>
>> A request on Avogradro (#248) is opened since 2012 for export in
>> obj/mtl, maybe you can contribute to it.
>>
>>>
>>> How should can we use POV-rays in After Effects? Thanks.
>>
>> The irony of it: After Effects is a "software as a service" license, I
>> could suggest to ask an evolution to Adobe (might not be free).
>>
>> On the other side, there is derivative of povray which might export as
>> gts (Gnu Triangulated Surface library) or STL (STereoLithography)
>> format, from imperfectly meshified finite 3D objects.
>> Then it would be another story to find a converter to obj for one of the
>> m.
>>
>>
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>
> Le_Forgeron,
>
> thanks for the detailed reply.  My solution doesn't have to be automatic.  After
> a few days of research on this topic there doesn't seem to be an automatic
> approach.
>
> The solutions I'm pursuing is this: use a macro to convert the spheres and
> cylinders in my scenes to meshes.  Then, there's a program called Poseray with
> will read my .pov files and convert them to objs.  But the .pov scenes have to
> be built from mesh objects.
>
> Where I'm stuck now is converting my scenes to meshes.  Could you recommend a
> macro to convert spheres and cylinders to meshes?
>

There are a couple of macros you could try.

- Charles Fusner's triscan macro: 
http://203.29.75.35/povray.binaries.scene-files/thread/%3C38CB12D0.732F7F15@enter.net%3E/?ttop=321382&toff=950

I was designed originally for Megapov (trace function) but with some 
adaptations it should work for version 3.7. I never used it thoroughly 
myself. Possible somebody else knows more.

- More promising maybe is Stephen Shonfield/Ingo Janssen's makemesh 
macro. As this is difficult now to find on the web, I attach a zip file 
with Ingo's stuff.


-- 
Thomas

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