kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 11:29 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> Cirilo,
>
> I've taken a closer look at the x3d code and I was wrong about the x3d
> file being converted and embedded in the board vrml file.  Apparently
> what this code does is attempts to calculate the transforms from x3d
> format to vrml format.  The larger problem is that the x3d file itself
> is neither copied to the 3D model path nor is the file url added to the
> child element.  This is a good thing because I tried it manually an the
> vrml viewer I used choked on the x3d file.  What needs to happen is the
> x3d file must be converted to vrml and then saved to the 3D model path.
>  I'm not sure who wrote this code but in the future please refrain from
> partial implementations that only confuse the next developer that tries
> to figure out what you attempted to do.  I am going to remove this code
> and only copy the vrml model files that actually exist.  All other files
> will be ignored until such time that a proper file converter is
> implemented.
>
> Wayne
> [snip]
>

Hi Wayne,

 No problem there. I didn't write the x3d code nor do I actually remember
checking
that anything was written to the VRML file since I didn't have an ASCII x3d
file
to work with. I mistakenly thought that the method called wrote out the x3d
data
in a VRML2 compatible fashion (obviously I never had a good look at the x3d
code).  I had known all along that the VRML file cannot successfully
reference an
external x3d file though since x3d is a successor and superset and the VRML
specification does not require handling of external files; it is rather
fortuitous
that most VRML viewers actually implement inclusion of external VRML files.

 I'm still in 2 minds about whether or not I should implement improved
support for
the VRML specification.  Although it would be useful for everyone who uses
the
VRML features, it's no simple task and I imagine I'll be quite busy with
STEP code
for the next 6 months.  One of the things which puts me off doing more VRML
work is the patchy support within the tools people commonly use to create
the
models. Blender has the absolute worst VRML support of any viewer I've
tested
and yet it remains the viewer of choice for many users. Wings3D generates
such abysmal VRML code and is such an awful tool to use that I created my
own set of tools for VRML model generation. I always feel like any work I
do with
VRML is limited by a need to ensure some working compatibility with bad
tools.

- Cirilo