Subject: Graphics Survey (fwd)

From: Bernie Roehl <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 93 9:49:42 EDT

> From [email-masked] Thu Sep 23 18:59:05 1993

> Also, are there standard world file formats for VR?

Some standards are slowly emerging.  The main polygon-based formats that I'm
familiar with are:

     DXF  (Autodesk; tends to have lots of different "flavors", so DXF-readers
          usually only support various subsets; 3DLINE and 3DFACE primitives
          are pretty safe bets, though.)

     3DS  (Autodesk 3D Studio; pretty straightforward, but only supports
          triangles)

     PLG  (REND386; simple, easy-to-parse)

     NFF  (Sense8 WTK; a nice simple polygonal format, sort of like PLG)

     OFF  (nice general-purpose format, but keeps several different files
          for each object; more extensible than the other formats)

Those are the major ones, as far as I know.  There are lots of others, of
course...

In general, the simpler the format is the better I like it.  Extensibility
is a plus, too.  Oh, here's another suggestion: let your object editor
read and write one format, and use separate conversion programs to handle
the others.  The advantages are:

         - easy to add support for additional formats
         - no need for lots of extra code in the object editor
         - converters are useful by themselves, with or without the editor

>     BTW, Bernie - Dave,  nice job on v5.

Thanks!

> I really like the new features in the latest release.  I can't
> wait to get my grubby hands on the source!  [;^)

I should have it online this weekend.