The Tone'ster wrote:
> ... I was wondering if there has ever been talk of exposing 3d models
> through a metalanguage in XML, or maybe to a spec such as SVG (though
> I guess SVG is 2d, not 3d).
>
> In this way, a person might not have to run off and download/pay
> for/learn some heavy duty 3d program to render some sort of basic
> aircraft frame, or building, or even cockpit.

While it's not XML, the ac3d file format is currently used for our
models is ASCII, is very simple, and is reasonably well documented at:

http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/andy/ac3d/man/ac3dfileformat.html

I "modeled" the attitude indicator ball in the A-4 using a perl script
this way.  The file format had a few limitations that annoyed me (no
explicit per-vertex normals, only one texture per "object"
definition).  But overall it's quite useful.

It bears pointing out that there's no magic dependency on AC3D.  We
support any format that plib can read, and it has parsers for a great
number.  This one seems to have the advantage of simplicity, though.

Andy

-- 
Andrew J. Ross                NextBus Information Systems
Senior Software Engineer      Emeryville, CA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]              http://www.nextbus.com
"Men go crazy in conflagrations.  They only get better one by one."
 - Sting (misquoted)


_______________________________________________
Flightgear-devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel

Reply via email to