kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

With Mario's work on a new renderer we're on our way to having 3D model
previews.
I have a screenshot of the model selection dialog with a preview of a dummy
model:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By_XTJN-s8aXZzFCbGdUMGlzXzA/view?usp=sharing

There's still a *lot* of work to do before we can see actual VRML and X3D
models;
I need to convert from the cache intermediate data model to the data model
used for
actual OpenGL display and then Mario and I would have to create VRML/X3D
plugins
to replace the current VRML/X3D parsers. The first model which would
actually be
visible in the preview would be IDF models since my next task is to make an
IDF
plugin as a simple example of how to write a functional plugin.

In the course of improving the 3D system Mario is more or less completely
rewriting
3d-viewer; neither of us could see a way of improving the system in stages.
However,
the 3D cache code can be decoupled from the renderer so that we can
introduce a
few changes earlier on. The 3D cache wouldn't be able to render previews in
this
instance but it would provide a significant improvement to the 3D model
file browsing.
The rest of the 3D work (rendering + functional plugins) will have to be
introduced
when that code has matured enough to replace 3D viewer and it's going to be
one
monster patch.

- Cirilo