Re: [Visualpython-users] VRML Export

[ruth c. <rc...@an...>]

Very cool!  We'll definitely add it to the VPython website.

What's a good VRML viewer for windows?  I downloaded one at random 
(cortona) but find it somewhat unintuitive.

	Ruth Chabay

--On Monday, July 16, 2001 12:34 AM -0400 Michael Zadok Katzhyman 
<mz...@an...> wrote:

> Everyone,
>
> Attached is a python module, based on povexport, which will export a
> VPython scene into VRML97 (2.0).  Feel free to integrate this into the
> VPython package and/or post on the VPython webpage.
>
> Everything is implemented except convex objects, text, textures, lighting,
> and camera positions.  Right now curves look like crap and I think I'll
> need to come up with some interpolation code.  Arrows are currently
> implemented as cylinders and cones instead of boxes and pyramids.  VRML
> has no primative for toruses (rings) but the code uses extrusions to make
> a torus (the only problem being rendering is slower since an extrusion is
> madup of a bunch of smaller shapes).
>
> Included in the file are routines to convert axis/angle rotations to
> quaternions (originally I was planning to implement them to combine
> rotations) and I have left them in there for future use.
>
> The code is call-compatible with povexport, if you pass an inc list to it
> it will ignore it (same with the Shadowless flag).  The only thing you
> haev to cahnge is the import string from "import povexport" to "import
> vrmlexport" and the calling code from "povexport.export(..." to
> "vrmlexport.export(..."
>
> The code itself has been tested on a couple of the demos, the
> electromagnetic wave problem from 33-132 at CMU, and a VPython model of
> the G0 Detector being installed at Jefferson Lab (I wrote this myself and
> it included nested frames with rotations and was what I used to initially
> test my code).
>
> VRML can be easily imported to other 3D rendering software
> (and then back into povray, I think).  Also VRML can be embedded in
> webpages which might be good for class webpages, etc.
>
> Cheers,
> Michael Katz-Hyman