At 10:13 AM 9/30/99, Mark Guzdial wrote:
>What are the 3-D Modeling Programs that can produce output that
>Balloon/Wonderland can read?  I know that Balloon can read 3-D Studio
>format, but I don't know if those objects can be used in Wonderland.
>Wonderland can read VRML 2.0, OBJ (which I've learned is the Wavefront
>output format), and their internal MDL format.

You can use 3DS files in Wonderlands.  The code you need is:

w makeActorFrom3DS: 'modelfile.3ds'

>So, besides the Teddy application/applet and Wavefront, what software can
>produce objects that can be used in Wonderland?  I've recently found some
>Mac 3-D modeling programs (e.g.,
>http://www.strout.net/macsoft/meshwork/intro.html) but I don't know enough
>about 3-D modeling to tell if these are useful, e.g., can I somehow use
>3DMF with Wonderland, or is there any easy way to convert 3DMF to OBJ?

Smaller modelers will occasionally be able to dump 3ds or OBJ.  OBJ is
actually the more likely, because it's a very simple, open format.  You can
also try a 3D file format converter.  Viewpoint Datalab's Interchange
(http://www.viewpoint.com/interchange) usually does a pretty good job.

If there's sufficient interest in a file format and the file spec is
available I'd be willing to add support for it to Wonderlands.

If there's insufficient interest I'd be willing to explain how to do it.  ;)

Jeff