Beaverton, Ore. - The Khronos Group is making the COLLADA 1.4 Conformance Test Suite available free of charge to all developers.
COLLADA is an open, XML-based industry standard that enables assets to be freely interchanged between 3D authoring applications which can then be mixed and matched in powerful combinations. The COLLADA test suite is a set of more than 500 detailed tests and a scripted framework that rigorously exercises applications that import and export COLLADA assets to ensure that they can reliably participate in a COLLADA-based tool chain.
Any developer that wishes to test COLLADA import and export functionality can now sign up at no charge to be a COLLADA Implementer to gain access to the source of the COLLADA CTS for running on their own platforms. If an Implementer wishes to state that the tested products have passed the Khronos tests, they must upload successful test results to a provided Khronos server.
Developers creating authoring applications are encouraged to become full COLLADA Adopters for a small fee that provides access to a more formalized test review process and permission to use the COLLADA logo and a series of COLLADA Conformance Badges confirming to users the quality of their COLLADA interoperability.
"Smith Micro has a strong interest in COLLADA conformance. Our Poser Pro 2010 product will benefit from the ability to publicly promote conformance to the COLLADA specification," says Uli Klumpp, director of engineering; productivity & graphics at Smith Micro. "Access to the conformance test suite also provides us with a valuable tool for test automation, allowing us to expand test coverage greatly with little extra effort."
"3D assets need to be portable and so the world needs COLLADA! But any digital interchange format needs to be reliably and robustly used by applications to fulfill its full potential, and that is why Khronos has released the extensive COLLADA conformance test suite free of charge. Now the COLLADA community and developers have the tools they need to ensure COLLADA can be imported and exported universally and reliably," explains Neil Trevett, president of Khronos and vice president of Mobile Content at Nvidia. "COLLADA is also a vital piece in the puzzle of bringing 3D pervasively to the Web and more pieces of that puzzle came together today with the release of WebGL 1.0 specification and the adoption of COLLADA by leading 3D Web applications, such as Second Life."