3DVIA

[Bruce Lehmann]

There are quite a few websites available where you can sell or give away the 3D models you create. There are also sites such as Renderosity where you can share renders, etc of your work. But, the most interesting variant of these, in my opinion, is 3DVIA.

3DVIA enjoys a kind of dual personality. To start with, Dassault Systemes, the company that provides this site, has an impressive line of software, some of which is focused on producing virtual experiences on and off line.

And the website provides a platform to upload, view and download 3D models.

The 3DVIA site itself serves a two fold purpose. A place to share your work with others, and to showcase Shape, a 3D modeling program that has a Sketchup feel to it and utilizes the 3DXML file format.

I am an amateur 3D modeler. Like a lot of amateurs, it is sometimes hard to put your stuff out there in an arena where there are people that do it professionally and are good at it. When I first stumbled across 3DVIA I saw it as a site to upload and share 3D models. I looked around and signed up, not knowing what to expect. I uploaded a simple model and that was it. Later I noticed an email that someone had commented on my work and went up to see what was said. To my surprise, it was a positive comment! This prompted me to look further into the site and observe that there was a lot of positive critique and commenting going on and more importantly, it was on work from all levels of expertise. This, in turn, encouraged me to submit more work.

Fast forward to now. There are all levels of modelers that upload to 3DVIA. Sometimes, on sharing sites and boards, there tends to be an “Elite Core” of creators that look down on people of lesser skill. Not here! I have received praise and encouragement from other modelers that in my opinion are professional level. What this creates is an atmosphere of safety for those that are just learning, middle level amateurs like me, and experienced creators to share tips with and suggestions to each other that help to make us all better at our mutual passion.

Here is how it works in a nutshell. The site uses the 3DVIA Player, which allows the model to be viewed in real time. It can zoom in, rotate, pan etc. It also provides different shader filters to view the model in and can be embedded in you own site just like a You Tube video. First, you can create your model in pretty much in any program you happen to prefer. The site accepts .3ds, .obj, .dea, .stl, vrml, .ply, .off and .kmz file formats.

It then converts a copy to its own 3DXML format for the online player while saving the original file type for download. You have to create an account on the site and then you can upload a model. You have to create a zip file if you are going to include textures with the object. You can download models that are uploaded there if the creator allows it (most do) in its original format. All creations, including your own, are copyrighted through Creative Commons and most can be used non-commercially. You can, however choose not to do this without losing the ability to upload it. There are 2 ways to share objects though. The second one is next…

This leads me to 3DVIA Shape. There is something exciting about being a participant on the ground floor of a new concept. The users input are right there along with what they create with it. This really helps speed along the process and allows the program designers to adjust quickly in developing a product. The people who oversee the site are helpful, encouraging and show an honest desire to nurture beginning creators, people trying to learn Shape, and even learn from others who upload to the site.

Once you have created an account you can download Shape. It is free to use. Once you have installed and launched it you login with the same user name and password you use for the site. It works seamlessly with the online site. As I said before, it feels a lot like Google Sketchup in the way it works. Here is the twist though, you can download any of the models on the site that allow it (most do) directly into Shape and create a new scene using them. The scenes can then be uploaded directly to your account on the 3DVIA site. It is just that simple. You can also model new creations with Shape. The only limitation is that there is no local saving of the work. It can only be uploaded to the site as their file format. There are tutorials and blogs to help you learn how to use the program.

Along with all of this, there are competitions that offer prizes and top ten lists help everyone to strive to be better and excel.

I am sure that some will say the site exists merely to advertise their products. And, it might be true. But thousands of users seem to be having a good time and learning. So I say, so what? Your content is protected just like other sites, you can’t sell models there, but you can have fun and get positive feedback on your work. Works for me.

[fabricator]

I've been trying to write a script to convert the 3DXML file format to vrml, for the silly reason that one of the files I got off the website doesn't load in their own software. The error was the file was too big.

I also got the conversion done, but the coordIndex they use starts at one, and vrml starts at zero. Not sure how to fix that yet, so its on hold.

[thyme]

Could you simply insert a dummy vertex at the beginning of the vertex list to offset the index order by one fab?

[Bruce Lehmann]

fabricator said:

I've been trying to write a script to convert the 3DXML file format to vrml, for the silly reason that one of the files I got off the website doesn't load in their own software. The error was the file was too big.

I also got the conversion done, but the coordIndex they use starts at one, and vrml starts at zero. Not sure how to fix that yet, so its on hold.

I think there is a limit of 2 megs for it to load into Shape

[fabricator]

Its a 5 meg file :(

No good, the problem is worse than I thought, the coordIndex values have non standard ordering.

So where vrml expects: 0 1 2 3 for a quad face
3DXML uses: 2 3 1 0
That is facing the wrong way and looks like this : |X|

Worse still there are huge ngons as well, which seem to have the same bad numbering as well.

For meshes it has three types:
strips, triangles, fans and I have no clue why they bothered.

What a stupid file format.