Will Rhino for Mac get .DAE export?

Rhino Rhino for Mac
1

i didn’t notice until now that rhino has .dae export… i’m curious if there are any plans to get that on mac?

fwiw, osx supports .dae files so in that sense, they’re the coolest exports you could probably do…
you can quick look them and pan/zoom/rotate/twist(2 finger roll) them without ever opening the file… they’ll also open in preview.app with the same navigation abilities…

point being, it’s a format that, amongst mac users at least, is the easiest way to share functioning 3D files since everybody has preview/ QuickLook/osx… no need for someone to download a trial app or viewer app etc.

that sales pitch aside… i’m also personally looking for an alternate to .3ds exports to get rhino files into other software… collada seems like it would be the best bet for that- all things considered.

2

I’ll log this as a bug. This potentially can be done, but, given the current implementation on Windows, is not trivial to port to the Mac.

3

thanks… understandable.

i’ll keep my fingers crossed but not too tightly :wink:

4

Hum, never had the opportunity to play with Collada…

Two key words - “other” and “best bet.” My experience is that it depends what the other app “likes” out of Rhino AND the specific geometry being exported. As for the major downstream engineering apps - Creo or SolidWorks - current best all around remains STEP IMO. But then there is that “depends/specific geometry thing.” Though STEP has consistently been the most reliable, sometimes a better result (read works or does not) might come from IGES or even .xt in a particular situation, etc. Comes down to trial and error unfortunately. Further, Creo, for example, “imports” .3dm (by mashing it though a few steps) and that may or may not yield a better result than STEP.

In the real world, as you know, data does not always flow one way either…may need to go out of Rhino and back in. Example - beyond pure downstream, mid-design rounds which may fail in Rhino may work in Creo, which contains probably the best “round” code in existence IMO. Once, when lamenting about the difference, and suggesting the “next” update forget about new features and just focus on the “best” rounds, Bob educated me to understand that the code (licensed intellectual property) in ProE (at the time) that does rounds, cost more per seat than Rhino!

In a perfect word external apps would just read/write .3dm…perfectly! Perhaps Mcneel does so already to the extent possible (Open Nurbs?) but in my view, as one of the world’s favorite design applications (mine too), the more Mcneel can do to make it easy(er) for downstream 3rd parties to import/export .3dm well the better.

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hmm… yeah, i think i see what you’re getting at and in the situations you’re describing, i don’t think collada will be best or even close to best (mid-design exchange, in/outs from other engineering programs, manufacture, etc)

i’m looking at it from the point of view of the .3dm being THE design… it’s the accurate one, or the engineered one, and the version to be constructed, etc… in other words, i’m not looking for a way to get rhino data into solidworks or proE or even autocad and the likes.

collada is for the visual side of things-- at least with my personal intent… the archviz aspects. accuracy isn’t important at that stage and it’s more about how things look and/or can be communicated to someone without modeling or cad experience.

look at lumion for instance:
http://lumion3d.com

that’s collada imports… sketchup is another app which, while it’s not necessarily limited to archviz only, is a lot more beneficial (to me at least) if i use it for archviz only instead of the convoluted and sometimes impossible methods necessary to create accurate working drawings of designs containing anything other than straight lines/flat surfaces… but sketchup developers have openly said collada is their main focus as far as import/export goes… they do support some other formats-- import .dwg or .3ds… there are ruby based plugins which allow import of OBJ or STL but they’re horribly slow (as in- 3hrs slow)… the transfer to sketchup with .dwg is hit or miss and often solids will lose their solidness… stray geometry all over the place etc… .3ds is ok except it’s limited to 60k or so polys so i’m sometimes left dividing up rhino models just to get them into sketchup… reassemble them… then back out as collada from there.

and re-mentioning that osx itself supports .dae and it’s the only format (that i’m aware of) which you can natively open on mac and explore/navigate in 3D… (collada is controlled by the khronos group… the same people managing openCL & openGL… .dae is an open standard 3D exchange format which is why, i think, a lot of the bigger companies are pushing for it to take hold)

there are of course other solutions but they all involve different developers doing different things… apple already supports collada and that would be the biggest hurdle… the sketchup developers aren’t making an OBJ importer which would solve a lot for me personally… but i’ve tried and tried and it’s not happening… they’re pretty firm about .dae being the future for this type of file exchange (and they’re also not-too-cool about giving 3rd party devs easy or any access to updated .skp sdk(?) so 3rd parties could make proper .skp exporters… lumion- i’m not even sure what they could do other than directly support .3dm… (fwiw, i don’t use lumion-- just using it as an example of what collada is good for)

with rhino already exporting collada, i figured my best (and maybe only viable) bet was to see if it could go into the mac version as well.

anyway-- this is what i meant by ‘personally looking for a .3ds alternative’ and ‘best bet, all things considered’

6

Understood. Collada export would add value if doable. Just wanted to latch onto export/import in gerneral because it is so vital to workflow of any kind, and by extension product value. However, with so many variables it has got to be a tough nut. That’s why I think one cornerstone strategy is promotion of .3dm to the max. Not being in the software business I don’t understand the realities of such.

Example - for viz, Keyshot reads .3dm near flawlessly with a few “need to knows.” No need for an intermediary format. In the case of Keyshot that is generally a one way trip. The KS developers know their business model revolves around taking the primary players in with the greatest of ease.

In the case of Rhino/Creo/Solidworks/etc interaction, it is debatable how much the downstream parties really care/invest. Since the realities of a manufactured product, (including viz, and ID being a Rhino core market), subsequently almost always include engineering apps for FEA, toolmaking, etc, the onus may be on Rhino to add value by doing all it can to aid such, similar (in reverse) to the onus being on KS to take in data.

Easy for me to say, as I am clueless as to exactly how Mcneel makes it easy for PTC/Dassault to import/export .3dm really well and smooth. Perhaps it’s impossible??? Hasn’t the CAD industry has being looking for a silver bullet since the beginning of time?

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maybe… i really don’t know much about file formats, how they work, what are required by them per app, etc…

but it does seem, from a user point of view, that at least some file formats are proprietary (in the sense that- “that’s mine and you can’t use it”)

with .3dm, it seems not at strict… Moi3D for instance uses .3dm as its main file format. i don’t know if there’s a licensing deal in place to allow that to happen or if it’s more like a .jpg in which many applications can just use the format as they choose but ultimately, for me personally, the sweetest would be if all of my downstream apps would just read/write .3dm.

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Yep, McNeel has put forth a valiant effort with OpenNURBS, but others need to “play ball” too.

http://wiki.mcneel.com/developer/opennurbs/home

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i didn’t realize mcneel were the people behind opennurbs. thanks for the links… interesting.
thumbs up @mcneel.