[ODE] XML Formats

[Dave Grundgeiger]

Justin Couch wrote:
> As one of the spec authors of X3D (and previously VRML97) let me toss my
> 2c in here. My business partner is president of the Web3D consortium,
> and also sits on the Collada standards group a Khronos.

Very cool.

The reason I asked about XML for rigid body physics (and more generally for 
all aspects of virtual world design) is that in every field I've ever worked 
in, data exchange among platforms has become something that users want 
solved. Today, simulation engines are islands. This will change. Five years 
from now, users will expect to be able to build a character in The Sims and 
then walk that character into World of Warcraft.

I believe that ODE will need to work with industry-standard XML that's being 
produced/consumed by other tools. Can anyone tell me if anyone has been 
working on this for ODE? Would I step on anyone's toes if I began to tinker 
with it?

> X3D has very different goals to Collada. X3D is designed around long
> term data storage and data interchange. There is also a large amount of
> interactivity stored. Collada is designed around the needs of static
> geometry import.

What kinds of tools were the authors of each spec trying to support? Does it 
make sense for ODE to be able to consume both X3D and Collada?

> One of the very key differences between the two formats is that Collada
> has version history
<snip>
> That is, you can open a Collada
> document and see every single version that model has gone through

Why would one want that in the XML rather than in a version control system?

> The second key difference is that Collada does not have a runtime model,
> X3D does. X3D is a complete environment in that way

Is there an easy way to explain to me what you mean by a "runtime model" in 
an XML spec?

> If anyone wants to discuss further the details between those two, let me
> know

Yes, I definitely want to discuss the details further, as soon as I get to 
the point of knowing what questions to ask!

Dave