CompuServe Messages

I know that splines are the 3D animation wave of the future. I'm convinced! But the other thing that is making animation available to the masses (Martin Hash's theme) is the availability of lots of ready-made textures, 3D clip art etc., either freeware or commercial. The latter is where a spline-based model has a major disadvantage – there are not enough spline modellers or models around. 3D model capture is another thing. Scanners lend themselves to polygon models. Spline models have to be carefully built and tweaked by hand (am I wrong?) Just look at the activity over in the Autodesk forum, people are giving away, swapping and modifying models from all over. (Yes, they are all polygon-based.) You guys really have to further address your interface with the polygon world. DXF import is not enough. A DXF editor at the front end, with tools to aid sensible conversion to spline, would be a good idea. The number of spline-based models around would mushroom and even more people would want to use your excellent software.