Domain: collada.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to collada.org.
Comments · 7
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COLLADA is an existing open exchange standard
There is already an open standard for asset exchange, COLLADA. This is an XML description of an asset which is designed for exchange between all sorts of tools. A scene is simply an asset. It will be interesting to see whether Pixar has many features that can't be represented with COLLADA.
http://collada.org/The nice think about COLLADA's XML is there is a vast array of tools that Slashdotters (and others) already know how to use in order to manipulate XML object graphs.
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Re:Web or Linux 3D SketchUp?
So I can download a whatever.dae file and its texture images, change the filename from whatever.dae to whatever.kml , and upload that file into Google Earth? And I can download a Google Earth whatever.kml file, rename it to whatever.dae, and open that with Collada or those other apps?
Is there a way to tell which version Google Earth is compatible with? -
Re: XML??? Binary is faster! - yeahyeahyeahThese comments are based on C++, though i have used Perl I have been doing much more C++ coding lately. Me too a C++ programmer - using xml extensively. The XML files are text based. Text I/O has to be read in sequentially whereas you can write out an entire block of allocated memory to the disk in binary format. The advantages of this is that you can read & write that data to and from disk 50 to 100 times faster than reading it in sequential from a text file.
What advantages does XML provide at the expensive of data i/o speed loss? Most xml parsers I have used had the option to read the complete file into memory in large chunks, and perform the actual parsing on the memory stream. So there is no performance penalty compared to binary file loading in terms of I/O.
The actual performance penalty comes from the actual parsing, which is of course slower than just memcpy()'ing memory-ready binary data into place. I have spent a whole lot of time on this performance issue and have found (the hard way) that the key to speeding this up lies in optimizing the xml document structure. Take it as a given that most xml tutorials advocate sub-par structure for the sake of simplicity.
Take a look at https://collada.org/public_forum/welcome.php for a good optimized xml-based format.
regards, -
Re:Mentioning that you were involved with VRML...
It does support skinning - I've actually just finished writing a converter from COLLADA into a custom format for a game (since COLLADA is not suited (nor designed) as a final format for distribution to users; it's for interchange between development tools where efficiency isn't so critical), and that handles skeletal animations using the standard features with no need for extensions. There are importers/exporters here for Max and Maya, here for Blender, elsewhere for others. It's also the native format for Google SketchUp / Google Earth models. The list here has Ogre and Unreal Engine as supporting it too, and it's a "Standard part of the PS3 toolchain" (source (PDF)) - so it is being used for real in games.
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Re:Standards in 3d modelling?
There's Collada, which is at least a step in the right direction for the industry as a whole.
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Collada vs X3D
According to the Collada team, about Collada and X3D:
"We do not have this handy, and doing a fair comparison will take some time. I am not sure we (The COLLADA team) are the best to answer this question, as we may be seen as biased. But, without waiting for a detailed comparison, I can give you some elements: We asked game developers and modeler companies about X3D, and we could not find one project using X3D as file format. If you are a game developer reading this and using X3D, please speak up now! COLLADA goal is to be co-designed by the main players so they all embrace it and support it directly. In other words, import/export for COLLADA is provided and supported directly by the tool vendors. COLLADA is designed as a interchange format, while X3D is designed as a content deployment format, targeting web type applications. This may create great divergences between the formats."
So they are targeted at different demographics, apparently. -
Collada
Don't foget Collada This format, headed up by sony and supported by all the major 3d modelling packages, was first released at SIGGPAPH, and it has a lot of promise.