Import the free collada format
An interior design application to draw house plans & arrange furniture
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puybaret,
space-mushrooms
I guess you'd like to import models directly from Google Warehouse http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ;-)
As mentioned in the request about Sketchup format support at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=1994912&group_id=152568&atid=784668 , SKP file format isn't public so I didn't see how I could support this very nice library in Sweet Home 3D import wizard... until your request about Collada support.
I went again on Google Warehouse, and discovered that their 3D models are also available in the Collada public format! It's too bad I didn't discover that before, because from http://collada.org/mediawiki/index.php/News , this has been the case since the 22nd of October 2007.
Anyway, if a public format helps you to understand how a file format is organized, it doesn't give you the program able to read such files and display them in a program.
By chance, a developer started to program a Java 3D loader for Collada files and very recently an other one improved it recently : http://shinoblogbyshiva.blogspot.com/2009/01/java3d-model-loader-for-google-sketchup.html
So let me look in the coming days how the classes they programmed could work in Sweet Home 3D.
Hi Puybaret!
As you wrote - the public collada format would increase the ability of 3D models tremendously. TIt would also help to use 3D models, desiged in Blender, in SH3D...
Great to hear that something is going on...
nice day wishes from vienna
robert
I made some tests last week with the Collada loader developed by Shinobu Izumi described at http://shinoblogbyshiva.blogspot.com/2009/01/java3d-model-loader-for-google-sketchup.html
I succeeded to import a few Collada files, but miserably a lot of the models available on Google Warehouse failed completely (nothing on screen) or partly (wrong or bad colors). I don't if it's a problem in the loader or in Google Warehouse Collada files.
Anyway I took profit of the new release 1.8 to add an option to Sweet Home 3D to let advanced users add support for additional file formats by themselves, as long as this format can be handled with a matching Java 3D loader. The class of this loader must be specified in the value of the Java System property named "com.eteks.sweethome3d.j3d.additionalLoaderClasses" (if you want to support more than one additional loader, their class must be separated by a space or a colon).
For you information, J3D.ORG maintains a list of available loaders described at http://java3d.j3d.org/utilities/loaders.html
So here's the tip for the Collada loader (I repeat it's for advanced users only ;-) :
Download the latest release of JAXB installer (it's required by Collada loader) at http://jaxb.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList ; the test described here was done for example with https://jaxb.dev.java.net/2.1.10/JAXB2_20090206.jar
Create a test directory on your disk and unzip the content of the SweetHome3D-1.8.jar file in this directory.
For example, if your directory is named "SweetHome3DCollada", you can extract SweetHome3D-1.8.jar with the following commands:
cd /path/to/SweetHome3DCollada
unzip path/to/SweetHome3D-1.8.jar
or
cd /path/to/SweetHome3DCollada
jar xf path/to/SweetHome3D-1.8.jar
Move the kmzloader.jar file you downloaded to the test directory
Double click on JAXB JAR file to install JAXB or execute the following command:
java -jar /path/to/JAXB2_xxxxxx.jar
Move the JAR files (activation.jar, jaxb-.jar and jsr.jar) available in the lib subdirectory of the JAXB installation directory to the test directory
Launch Sweet Home 3D with the following command:
java -Dcom.eteks.sweethome3d.j3d.additionalLoaderClasses=org.jdesktop.j3d.loaders.kmz.KmzLoader -Djava.ext.dirs=. com.eteks.sweethome3d.SweetHome3D
Try to import a Collada file with "Furniture > Import furniture..." menu item or with a drag-and-drop of a Collada file onto Sweet Home 3D plan or catalog.
DAE/Collada format is supported from version 2.4