Toronto, Canada - Ten years after releasing their first Rhino/OpenNURBS .3dm file format support, Okino Computer Graphics is shipping its rewritten, revised, and optimized import/export converters compatible with McNeel’s Rhinoceros v5.
Now into its 23rd year of development, Okino’s PolyTrans|CAD enables cross-conversion between all major MCAD, DCC/animation, and vis/sim 3D file formats and programs.
Okino’s revised .3dm import/export converters work within the standalone PolyTrans & NuGraf products, PolyTrans-for-3dsMax, PolyTrans-for-Maya, PolyTrans-for-Softimage, and many third-party products, such as: 3DCreate (by Visual Components), Cinema4D and its “Engineering Bundle” (by Maxon Computer), EON Reality, NGRAIN military training products, Pytha (by CATS Software), Quest-3D (by Act-3D), VirTools (“4DC” .nmo pipeline by Realicon), and others.
The newly released .3dm converters provide exacting support for the following core aspects of the .3dm file format: full cloning of Rhino’s recursive instancing of block definitions and its nuances during import (conversion of instancing is one of the hardest aspects of professional 3D file format conversion), recursive layer recreation, trimmed NURBS surfaces, NURBS curves (single, composite, and multi-segment), polyline curves, mesh geometry (with vertex normals, vertex uv texture coordinates and vertex colors), import of child render meshes of Breps, 3D point clouds, import of 2D vector text annotations, viewport cameras, ambient/spot/point/directional light sources, materials, and diffuse, bump, and environment texture maps.
“This is an important release for our Okino software users who connect to Rhino through our .3dm conversion pipeline,” says Robert Lansdale, president and CEO of Okino Computer Graphics Inc. “Fourteen years ago, we began working with McNeel & Associates to create one of the first, if not the first, external conversion systems for their Rhino v1 software, using the little known and esoteric NURBS capabilities of the Wavefront OBJ format. In January 2001, we released our native Rhino .3dm import and export converters for Rhino v2, which have been revised with each new subsequent release of Rhino. With our new v5 release, complex Rhino files with recursive ‘block’ usage, alpha-textured objects and full scene attributes can flow out to our popular export formats such as SketchUp, U3D (for 3D PDF), Collada, FBX, OpenFlight, 3ds Max, Maya, Lightwave, C4D, etc. with proper retention of the original Rhino scene data. In the reverse direction, Okino has been the main provider of all main CAD + DCC formats for the last 3 decades, and can move data ranging from SolidWorks to Collada into Rhino in a robust and error-free manner.”
Benefits to Rhino Users
• 3D users implicitly assume that the free 3D converters which come bundled with their modeling or animation systems are complete and error free. This is typically not the case. Okino spends several years developing & refining each of its main conversion file formats, resulting in robust, fully supported and error free implementations.
• Import from these packages and formats into Rhino .3dm format (click to jump to Okino WEB page): Autodesk Softimage and dotXSI, ACIS SAT, Autodesk Inventor, BVH/Acclaim, CATIA v4 & v5, Cinema-4D, Collada, DirectX, DXF/DWG, DWF-3D (AutoCAD, Navisworks, Revit), ESRI, FACT, FBX, HOOPS, IGES, JT, Lightwave, OpenFlight, Parasolid, PDB, PLY, Pro/Engineer (using an embedded copy of PTC’s Pro/Engineer), Solid Edge, SolidWorks, SketchUp, STEP, STL, U3D, Wavefront OBJ, VRML, X3D, XGL and others.
• Export from Rhino .3dm files to these packages and formats (click to jump to Okino WEB page): Autodesk Softimage and dotXSI, BVH/Acclaim, Cinema-4D, Collada, DirectX, DXF/DWG, DWF-3D, FACT, FBX, HOOPS, JT, Lightwave, NGRAIN 3KO, OpenFlight, OpenGL C code, PLY, RIB, SketchUp, STL, SW3D, U3D, Wavefront OBJ, VET, VRML, XAML, X3D, XGL and others.
• Other file formats supported through third-party plug-ins, http://www.okino.com/third_party_plugin_modules.htm.
• Native Rhino .3dm support within 3ds Max and Maya using Okino’s PolyTrans-for-3ds-Max and PolyTrans-for-Maya plug-in systems. These have been the defacto, professional conversions systems for 3ds Max & Maya since 1995.
• Export Rhino .3dm to all main WEB streaming and downstream viewing formats: Collada, DirectX, DWF-3D, JT OpenHSF, U3D (3D PDF), Viewpoint VET, VRML, XAML, X3D and XGL.
• Import parts, assemblies, hierarchy and materials directly from a running copy or native file of Autodesk Inventor, Solid Edge or Solid Works into Rhino. Unique!
• Strong ties to the visual simulation (VisSim) community with proven OpenFlight, VRML 1.0+2.0 and X3D support.
• Okino provides free, quick and highly educated support for its software direct from its development team.
• The hidden magic in the conversion process is Okino’s unique and proprietary CAD optimization processor, integrated into each of our CAD importers. This processor is by far the most complex aspect of our entire 3D CAD conversion software pipeline. Turn it on and it’ll wrangle large and unwieldy CAD assemblies into refined datasets.
• Most importantly, Okino does not use reverse engineered CAD modules as is done by others, but rather licenses, utilizes and/or accesses the industry standard CAD geometry engines from Autodesk (Inventor), Dassault Systemes (CATIA), PTC (Pro/E), Solid Edge, SolidWorks, Spatial (ACIS solids engine), UGS/Siemens (JT Open toolkit) and others.