kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 8:45 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> On 1/3/2016 7:06 AM, Bevan Weiss wrote:
> > Is it something that might be worth considering an external open source
> > library for?
> > A very quick google reveals a few options:
> > http://assimp.sourceforge.net/main_features.html
> > http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
> >
> > I imagine that the number of 'desired' file formats would quickly expand
> out
> > of control for what the KiCad development team would have the time for.
> >
> > If there was a library that would just dump out the raw info (like
> polygons
> > and vertex shading/specular etc) that would make things easier right?
>
> Before I would allow this dependency to be added to KiCad, I would
> require the following:
>
> 1) It's license is compatible with the GPL3+.
>
> 2) Builds from source on Linux, Windows, and OSX without patching or
> major hand holding using a mature build configuration tool such as cmake
> or autotools.
>
> 3) Packages for most major Linux distros, OSX, and windows and what the
> minimum usable version should be (Debian Stable or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS are
> good benchmarks).
>
> 4) A sane (read better than a lot of the stock Find*.cmake modules)
> FindAssimp.cmake file for configuring the KiCad build.
>
> 5) A lot of testing.
>
> If we are really interested in supporting most or all of the 3D formats
> that Assimp handles then it may be something worth investigating.
>
>
Personally I have no interest in Assimp or even using Meshlab. My interest
is in 3D solid models which can be used by MCAD, which means IDF, IGES
and STEP. With the responses I've received I will implement a VRML1
parser as well but not an X3D parser (very few people use X3D and those
who do and responded told me that they can probably live without it). The
VRML models, although only visual models, are currently used by many
people for various purposes so I will support them.

One requirement I have for any 3D plugin is that if it supports rendering
of the image within kicad then it should use the data structure which
was designed for use with the model cache system. So in principle if
someone *did* want to support all formats within Assimp then they
should write a plugin which uses Assimp and converts its output to the
single format expected by the cache system. One great thing about
the plugin system is that except for plugins which we adopt as part
of the kicad source, plugins can be built out-of-tree and do not have to
be a part of the official kicad project.  Going back to Assimp - I see
no reason to support every 3D visual model format imaginable - in reality
very few visual formats are used for ECAD applications and where MCAD
interaction is concerned, no sensible person will want to work with data
from a 3D visual only model.

- Cirilo


>
>
>
> Regards,
> Bevan Weiss
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kicad-developers
> [mailto:kicad-developers-bounces+bevan.weiss=gmail.com@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
]
> On Behalf Of Nick Østergaard
> Sent: Sunday, 3 January 2016 9:42 PM
> To: Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: KiCad Developers <kicad-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Kicad-developers] support of 3D model plugins
>
> I have seen multiple people reporting bugs regarding X3D, so I guess there
> are some people using it. I don't know if it is because they don't know
> which format "to use" or that they genuinely mean it is better than VRML2.
> Me, myself, I don't really know the real difference.
>
> 2016-01-03 3:46 GMT+01:00 Cirilo Bernardo <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>:
>> I have finished the VRML2 3D plugin and the (new) 3D Properties
>>
>> dialogs now show a preview of VRML2 models.  I have read the VRML1
>>
>> specifications a few times over and I'm uncertain if I should
>>
>> support that format - any comments?  The same is true of the X3D
>>
>> model format - do we really have enough users of VRML1 and X3D to
>>
>> warrant implementation of those parsers as a 3D plugin?
>>
>>
>> - Cirilo
>>
>>
>>
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