LSC: Texture Mapping extension
2012-04-08, 3:45 (This post was last modified: 2012-04-12, 23:53 by Travis Cobbs.)
2012-04-08, 3:45 (This post was last modified: 2012-04-12, 23:53 by Travis Cobbs.)
As has been mentioned in the past, a fair bit of work has been put in behind the scenes to create a texture mapping extension for LDraw. The original work was done by Joshua Delahunty, and then a bunch of back and forth work was done between him and me after he contacted me and I worked on supporting the extension in LDView.
I've been meaning to bring it up here with the LSC for discussion for a long time now, and just never got around to it. Well, I finally got around to converting the specification Word Document that Joshua sent me to HTML, and I feel that LDView is at a point where it can be used as a proof-of-concept renderer for LDraw parts with textures. So, now I'd like us to discuss the extension as it exists now, and work towards getting it ratified.
The current specification (written mostly by Joshua, I think, but edited by me to remove certain features) is here. (I was going to put it into the LSC scratch pad, but ldraw.org was going so painfully slow that I decided not to.)
My development LDView (hopefully) conforms to the above specification. Additionally, a number of files have already been created that conform to this specification by Joshua. A sample of some of them are available here. Because of this, I'd like to request that syntax changes only be made if a relatively major problem is found with the current syntax. I realize this isn't normally how the LSC works, but it seemed that there was little hope of getting this ratified without a working sample implementation, and doing that involved a lot of work.
Obviously, you cannot view the above sample files with any current official LDraw viewer. However, I am currently in the process of releasing LDView 4.2 Beta 1, and have uploaded the installers to SourceForge.net. You can find them below.
Windows 32 bit
Windows 64 bit
Mac Intel 32/64 bit
Linux 32 bit .deb
Linux 64 bit .deb
Some notes. The Linux versions were built using Ubuntu 11.10. They may or may not work on any other Linux versions. The Mac version probably requires Snow Leopard or later. Please let me know if you try it on Leopard or earlier.
The original specification Word Document I got from Joshua Delahunty is here. In addition to some formatting changes, I removed the description of the CYLINDRICAL projection method, and removed its optional GLOSSMAP. Based on the recent discussion of filenames in type 1 lines, I don't think that the syntax for gloss maps was appropriate. If gloss maps are added as a future feature, I would expect them to be in a subsequent !TEXMAP line with a new command. Finally, I removed the OpenGL sample code. That sample code should probably go somewhere, but I don't think the official spec is the right place for it.
Note: I added LSC: to the thread title to differentiate it in the recent messages list from the thread in the public group. I did this to all messages in the thread, which is why I'm listed as the last editor on them. I did NOT change the text of any of the other messages.
I've been meaning to bring it up here with the LSC for discussion for a long time now, and just never got around to it. Well, I finally got around to converting the specification Word Document that Joshua sent me to HTML, and I feel that LDView is at a point where it can be used as a proof-of-concept renderer for LDraw parts with textures. So, now I'd like us to discuss the extension as it exists now, and work towards getting it ratified.
The current specification (written mostly by Joshua, I think, but edited by me to remove certain features) is here. (I was going to put it into the LSC scratch pad, but ldraw.org was going so painfully slow that I decided not to.)
My development LDView (hopefully) conforms to the above specification. Additionally, a number of files have already been created that conform to this specification by Joshua. A sample of some of them are available here. Because of this, I'd like to request that syntax changes only be made if a relatively major problem is found with the current syntax. I realize this isn't normally how the LSC works, but it seemed that there was little hope of getting this ratified without a working sample implementation, and doing that involved a lot of work.
Obviously, you cannot view the above sample files with any current official LDraw viewer. However, I am currently in the process of releasing LDView 4.2 Beta 1, and have uploaded the installers to SourceForge.net. You can find them below.
Windows 32 bit
Windows 64 bit
Mac Intel 32/64 bit
Linux 32 bit .deb
Linux 64 bit .deb
Some notes. The Linux versions were built using Ubuntu 11.10. They may or may not work on any other Linux versions. The Mac version probably requires Snow Leopard or later. Please let me know if you try it on Leopard or earlier.
The original specification Word Document I got from Joshua Delahunty is here. In addition to some formatting changes, I removed the description of the CYLINDRICAL projection method, and removed its optional GLOSSMAP. Based on the recent discussion of filenames in type 1 lines, I don't think that the syntax for gloss maps was appropriate. If gloss maps are added as a future feature, I would expect them to be in a subsequent !TEXMAP line with a new command. Finally, I removed the OpenGL sample code. That sample code should probably go somewhere, but I don't think the official spec is the right place for it.
Note: I added LSC: to the thread title to differentiate it in the recent messages list from the thread in the public group. I did this to all messages in the thread, which is why I'm listed as the last editor on them. I did NOT change the text of any of the other messages.