[ODE] XML ODE Data Interchange Format

Sun Mar 7 22:31:04 MST 2004

On Sun, 2004-03-07 at 18:12, Jani Laakso wrote:
> In short, I suggest that:
> -XODE does not contain any visual representation data (for Geoms/Bodies)
> -XODE contains a tag that links Geoms/Bodies to external visual 
> representation file (e.g. 3ds)
> -if linkage is not found, visual representation should be constructed 
> from the Geom definition itself
> 
> Perhaps I'd remove the <mesh> tag and let editors use <ext 
> source="juice" /> tag for linking visual representation to bodies. 
> Visual representation is naturally "external" for XODE.

<snip>

> > I don't think the ODE file format should venture into the domain of
> > also being a 3D file format - since many applications will place
> > far more demands on their 3D models than the ODE team would want to
> > support.
> 
> Definately not, it would bloat the file excessively and imho the actual 
> visual representation does not belong to XODE definition. But.. Somekind 
> of linkage beetween XODE files and visual representation files should 
> exist. XODE might contain unique identity numbers (or name) for each 
> object so the objects can be linked externally. Or XODE could contain 
> external link info to some other file.
> 
> Just like XODE now has:
> 
> <ext>
>   <extension name="file-location">
>     <location>./data/models/tire-small.3ds</location>
>   </extension>
> </ext>

This is pretty much how I envisioned it too.

Maybe as you say we don't need the <mesh> tag at all.  The way I see it
is the the importer doesn't necessarily have to have a file name - it
could even just use the mesh tags name as an identifier to get the file
- but a separate <mesh> tag is not needed for that, it could use the
name of the <body> to achieve the same effect.  

The extension you proposed will do fine to store the file locations, and
it would make sense for it to be the standard way of storing such
information.  There could be another tag as well to specify the linked
file format/version, eg <format>Max Object</format>. Perhaps this is not
needed with .3ds files but it could be handy if a format has several
different versions which must be treated slightly differently.

I'll make a revision to the spec tomorrow taking into account these and
the other comments received to date.

Cheers,

Will.

-- 
William Denniss - will@ http://tanksoftware.com/