Looking for ac3d to PLY exporter

[dugla]

Hello,
I'm a newbie to ac3d but a capable programmer. Has anyone come across an exporter that writes to the PLY polygon file format ( http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/geomformats/ply/ ) ?

This is a nice ascii shared vertex file format that is perfect for my needs.

Alternatively, where can I find the ac3d file format spec?

[Andy]

The ply format looks quite simple and you should be able to get something going quite quickly as a plugin. Look at the sv_* plugins in the SDK for examples.

Some of the example plugins need updating for 4.0 - I'll post a migration message soon.

The AC3D file format doc is

http://www.ac3d.org/ac3d/man/ac3dfileformat.html

Writing import/export plugins is easy with AC3D - but do post any questions you have here.

Andy

[Gary E Sanders]

I do conversions of ply to ac3d format in a text editor. The only problem in going the other way is getting the normals out of AC3D and into the ply file. Since ver 4.0 I don't seem to be able to access ac3d normals, even when using the vertex normal from the surface svertex list.

ges

[Andy]

Hi Gary,

Have you got the 4.0 headers? If not - send me an email and I'll get them to you.

The structures have changed in 4.0 and as you mention, normals are now stored in the SVertex structures (along with the vertex pointer and the texture tx,ty). So - they are now per vertex reference and not per vertex.

Andy