Interchange 2
2 messages in this thread
Another two cents: Something that would seem to fit with Interchange
would be a Postscript converter. Even one that would just do fonts would
help, but entire file coversion (B/W only) would be great! If only
un-filled outline objects. I realize this may not be trivial, as the only
3-D program on a personal computer platform I know of that handles this is
release 2 of Studio 3D by Autodesk; but this aspect alone has me wanting to
look at that package (even at, gulp, $3,000 for the software!). …. I do
a lot of corporate logo animation. Or perhaps you know of some combination
of progs that would work, say Postscript to ProDraw to Imagine? Looking
forward to I-change 2.
… Jeff.
Yes, I've thought about that a lot. PostScript being what it is, I suspect
it would take many months to create (probably about 1.5 man-years) and even
more time and energy to support. There's a lot there! 3D Studio is able to
use Type 1 *fonts* (not general PostScript programs) to make 3D objects.
That's a more manageable sub-set than full PostScript.
We almost released a Pro Draw to 3D converter, but the complications grew
too great. There's too many subroutines and filters we'd need to perfect
before we could do it right, and I'd rather not release something that
didn't work right all the time. For example, you're free to make endlessly
complicated, overlapping Bezier-based paths with a structured drawing
program. How do you convert those to N-sided polygons for a program like
LightWave? First, you reduce all the Bezier curves to line segments, then
take that long, long poly-line and self-intersect it to make the same
filled or unfilled regions you saw on your PostScript printer, then take
each of those filled regions and reduce them to N sides, because LightWave
can only really handle faces with about 80 sides. the self-intersection and
breakdown is the hard part to do right. Someday, maybe.