Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!dalcs!garfield!john13 From: john13@garfield.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: IFF for 3D packages? Message-ID: <4271@garfield.UUCP> Date: Wed, 2-Dec-87 23:30:17 EST Article-I.D.: garfield.4271 Posted: Wed Dec 2 23:30:17 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 01:48:15 EST References: <4VfpM8y00WAKzW005j@andrew.cmu.edu> <4592@well.UUCP> Reply-To: john13@garfield.UUCP (John Russell) Distribution: na Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's Lines: 36 >In article <4VfpM8y00WAKzW005j@andrew.cmu.edu> mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) writes: >>With all the talk about interchange programs between Videoscape 3D, >>Sculpt 3D, Forms in Flight, etc etc. I begin to wonder why an IFF >>format for describing three-dimensional objects has not surfaced. >>After all, isn't the whole intention of IFF to avoid kldugy >>conversion programs and allow various packages to work in tandem? > [Leo Schwab gives examples of the many considerations for such a standard] I'm under the impression that any IFF forms you don't understand, or your program isn't concerned with, you can ignore. I'm surprised that more use hasn't been made of this... if 'twas me designing the format for an image or other file, I'd let you put a textual description of the file as an IFF form inside it (maybe even a description of the fine details of the file format); as an option, perhaps encode the same information in two different ways -- as normal IFF, and maybe as specs for a 16 million colour image. An IFF reader would still only read the forms it knew and display it properly. Sure it would be very space-consuming, but you'd only use these options where you wanted to provide extra info/compatibility for another package or person. That's why I hope that whatever standard is agreed upon, will let Sculpt encode more information about, say, palette than Videoscape does, and Videoscape encode more information about, I don't know, complex polygonal shapes; all that's common to the features of the two programs would be available to either, without having an IFF standard for 3D that conformed to the "lowest common denominator" (I'm thinking of awful graphics printouts right now and shuddering :-). John -- "A Chinese soldier in Tibet who tried to tear off a British woman's Sergeant Bilko T-shirt has become the first known case of someone mistaking Phil Silvers for the Dalai Lama." -- Toronto Globe & Mail, Nov. 14/87