Export options

Oh…that’s news to me, Richard.

Usually whenever I export something to DirectX, it shows up triangulated in other programs. I guess it’s the other programs that are triangulating the files rather than 3DC, given this new information.

I think I’ll try the converter, after all.

-Mel Ebbles

Richard,

I just finished doing 56 master parts for a new paper model, and I realized there was no way for me to quickly and efficiently export each part to an individual, untriangulated OBJ file. The model unfolder I use, naturally, doesn’t accept 3DC or 3DO files, and has no user-accessible support for groups.

And you really don’t want to try unfolding a 1500 face model all at once unless you’re a closet masochist. It’s gotta be done in smaller chunks so you can optimize the final 2D pattern for efficient assembly.

Any ideas on how one might go about exporting several dozen model parts to their own files?

-Mel Ebbles

Richard,

Hmm. That’s what I’ve been doing all along. I’d hoped there was a faster way, lol.

Oh well. I’ll probably just write a script for it, provided there’s an ExportToOBJ script interface.

-Mel Ebbles

Are there multiple andquot;objectsandquot;? If so, you could copy each andquot;objectandquot; to an object library and drag and drop each object individually onto a scene and export the individual object to OBJ.

Richard

There isn’t an ExportToOBJ method. Sorry.

Richard

Hi,

You might try saving to DirectX, and then using my converter for Viewpoint MTX files: this produces OBJ and MTL files as well as MTX (MTX is simply a recipe xml file to re-assemble the OBJ files in Viewpoint Scene Builder).
Each object (mesh) in the DirectX file produces a separate OBJ file.

It is called andquot;x2mtxandquot; and it is available for download at:

[img:jlsp712h]http://www.imatowns.com/xelagot/links.html[/img:jlsp712h]
<!– m –><a class="postlink" href="http://www.imatowns.com/xelagot/links.html">http://www.imatowns.com/xelagot/links.html</a>&lt;!– m –>

Alex

Exporting to DirectX doesn’t triangulate, but the OBJ export used to (but doesn’t anymore).

Richard

Thanks for the suggestion, Alex, but I don’t want to export to DirectX because it’ll triangulate my models. I’m working with cut-fold-glue paper models and triangulated models are very inconvenient because they generate a lot of hidden edges (i.e., across quads) when unfolded.

With vector data, changing the fill style of a single quad makes for much smoother results. Changing the fill style of a triangulated quad results in a visible seam and non-seamless fills within the same andquot;quadandquot;.

I don’t have any true control over the vector output from the model unfolder, so getting my models into the unfolder as untriangulated n-gons makes the postprocessing work much easier.

-Mel Ebbles