Marijn
Active member
Hello all,
For the add-on I am working on, I would like some help or advice on Orbiter's mesh file format.
The plan is to create meshes on the fly for any asteroid in the Asterank database for use in Orbiter 2016. Since my application is running on Google Apps Script, I did have a look at some Javasript frameworks for 3D modeling. At the moment, I am playing with Three.js. I am also looking at Babylon.js.
I've no experience with 3D modeling, so I could use some advice on various things. I know what vertices are. And faces. That's about it at the moment.
Creating an asteroid with Three.js turns out to be really easy. All it takes are a few lines of code. The hard part seems to be to export the Three.js geometry into Orbiter's mesh format. My plan, perhaps naive, is to iterate the arrays of vertices and faces of the geometry to script the Orbiter mesh. Orbiter's mesh files do not look overly complicated to me so I think I can figure it out eventually by eyeballing it. However, if I take a look at existing exporters included in the frameworks, they all look complicated to me. So I might underestimate the complexity. Perhaps the order of the arrays is not what Orbiter requires. Then I'll have no idea what to do.
Orbiter's manual says that it uses a proprietary mesh file format. Does that mean the format is only used by Orbiter and that I cannot expect to find much more information about it besides the manual? Is there another format which is like Orbiter's format which I could inspect for inspiration?
I like to have an existing model in both Orbiter and another common format which includes everything my exporter should be able to handle. Any suggestions or a link to a download?
Thanks for any help or advice.
For the add-on I am working on, I would like some help or advice on Orbiter's mesh file format.
The plan is to create meshes on the fly for any asteroid in the Asterank database for use in Orbiter 2016. Since my application is running on Google Apps Script, I did have a look at some Javasript frameworks for 3D modeling. At the moment, I am playing with Three.js. I am also looking at Babylon.js.
I've no experience with 3D modeling, so I could use some advice on various things. I know what vertices are. And faces. That's about it at the moment.
Creating an asteroid with Three.js turns out to be really easy. All it takes are a few lines of code. The hard part seems to be to export the Three.js geometry into Orbiter's mesh format. My plan, perhaps naive, is to iterate the arrays of vertices and faces of the geometry to script the Orbiter mesh. Orbiter's mesh files do not look overly complicated to me so I think I can figure it out eventually by eyeballing it. However, if I take a look at existing exporters included in the frameworks, they all look complicated to me. So I might underestimate the complexity. Perhaps the order of the arrays is not what Orbiter requires. Then I'll have no idea what to do.
Orbiter's manual says that it uses a proprietary mesh file format. Does that mean the format is only used by Orbiter and that I cannot expect to find much more information about it besides the manual? Is there another format which is like Orbiter's format which I could inspect for inspiration?
I like to have an existing model in both Orbiter and another common format which includes everything my exporter should be able to handle. Any suggestions or a link to a download?
Thanks for any help or advice.