Universal 3D File Format In The Works 464
telstar writes "The Register is reporting that more than 30 companies are working together to define a new file format intended to serve as a universal 3D file format. The new file format will be named the 'Universal 3D Format', or U3D. According to the article, they hope to make the new format as standard as MP3 has become for audio, and JPEG has become for 2D images. Interesting that they would choose two lossy media formats as models for comparison."
Really bad examples to pick... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's hope U3D is able to stay clear of such entanglements. Having a patent involved in a file format makes it questionable if FOSS can legally use the format.
JPEG patent is bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
You have a point with MP3, but the author of BurnAllGIFs.org [burnallgifs.org] seems to think the JPEG patent wouldn't stand up in a court of law.
Re:JPEG patent is bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
HEY! (Score:3, Funny)
(ducks for cover...) ;-)
Re:HEY! (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the great things about some of the open formats out there (like openGL and vrml) is that they are exensible... don't have constructs for CSG? Go ahead and make them.
Besides, I REALLY like having a format that, when I'm just playing around, I can make text file and with a couple of lines have spheres and lights and cubes and stuff. I've designed simple furniture, including a hutch for my guinea pigs, using OpenInventor (which is basically VRML).
Re:JPEG patent is bullshit (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, come on. 'BurnAllGIFS.' It practically reeks of professionalism and years of law school.
As an aside, I have this CD full of GIFs I burned, but nobody ever told me what I was supposed to do with them after I burned them. Anyone?
Re:JPEG patent is bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
If emotion was mutually exclusive with competence, we wouldn't have had Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or most of the United States Founding Fathers.
Re:JPEG patent is bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course not. That's not what I was commenting on -- I quoted your phrase I mean, come on. 'BurnAllGIFS.' It practically reeks of professionalism and years of law school. That and that alone was the sentence that I took issue with. It makes no more sense to ignore someone as "unprofessional" because the name of their domain is "burnallgifs.com" than it does to ignore someone because the name of their domain is "sickfuck.org
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:5, Interesting)
In the first line of the article, it says that Microsoft is involved with developing the format. Maybe I'm cynical, but I have little to no faith that this will come out as an open standard. We all know about Microsoft's SOP with respect to actual open standards that they've "enhanced". With them in on the ground floor on this one, I think it's doomed to be proprietary.
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft's motive (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to long ago there was a push for Microsoft to adopt open file formats for their office suite. They naturally didn't follow through. Their reason is they have a virtual monopoly in office suites - despite very viable alternatives. If they adopted an open file format then that would, in their mind, strengthen the competitors and weaken customer lock-in.
Their motive for advocating an opne 3D graphic format is that they have no stake in the 3D imaging market. If an open format is adopted then that gives them a leg up on taking over the 3D image market.
The interesting thing is how Microsoft "embraced and extended" the SVG format - only to make their own incompatible format wvg [microsoft.com]. This is inspite of the fact that Microsoft was involved in the specification [w3.org]. I would suspect they will use the same strategy with U3D.
Re:Microsoft's motive (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft wants to be certain that every available 3D modelling program can easily and accurately export to a format that will work directly with the next v
Re:Microsoft's motive (Score:3, Insightful)
I define "parse" the same way your dictionary does- which does not call it equivalent to "understanding". In computer science, as in linguisticts, parsing is one specific stage of coming to understand.
The following sentence is parsable according to the same rules as the English language; but can you understand it?
It's parsable, but not comprehensible. Yo
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:4, Insightful)
-fren
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not nitpicking at all...the article states that
MP3 is unquestionably a patented, and therefore proprietary, format, and JPEG might have some patent issues of its own. If those are the examples they cite, then it's perfectly legitimate to probe more deeply into what exactly they mean when they say they wish to make their format "as freely available" as these.
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a press realse. Its not a white paper or a tech demo. Hell, it was probobly writen by a marketng guy who doesn't know what a losssy format is, and has their engineers grumbling about it as we speak.
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:5, Insightful)
In that case, it's a very good example, only not a slashdot-compliant one.
Oh knock it off (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe the references to JPEG and MP3 were just examples of other popular standards, not meant to point out patent-encumbered standards.
That being said, the companies involved are all heavy users of patents, in many cases aggresively. They're also using ECMA as their standards body, who has a very premissive policy on patents [ecma-international.org]. For anybody who reads that link, "reasonable and non-discrimantory licensing" means "everybody who uses this 'standard' can be made to cough up some dough."
So yes, in all likelyhood, this "standard" will be patent-encumbered and will require any new kids on the block to pay what will likely be extortion-rate fees (though they'll be "reasonable" fees in that any multinational with billions in the bank can afford them). The companies involved in creating the standard (the ones who don't like competition and in some cases have been convicted for price-fixing and illegal monopolistic practices) will simply cross-license the relevant patents amongst themselves, meaning they're free to implement it without cost.
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Really bad examples to pick... (Score:2, Informative)
Thank you for being up to date on all of your legal technical issues.
Lossiness? No, try patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Interesting that they would choose two lossy media formats as models for comparison.
Would one really notice slight noise in the coordinates of points of a mesh or in texel color values?
Frankly, I'm more worried about this from the article:
MP3 is not free [mp3licensing.com]. Will Intel or one of Intel's licensors pull a Unisys [burnallgifs.org] after this format has become popular? Apparently, the 3D Industry Forum's FAQ page [3dif.org] doesn't even contain the word "patent".
Re:Lossiness? No, try patents (Score:3, Interesting)
Uhm... yes... it'd create a jittery effect that could make a mess of things when it comes times to convert the rendered output to an MPEG.
Control mesh noise with a slider (Score:3, Informative)
[coordinate noise would] create a jittery effect
In skeletal animation, noise in the mesh would move more or less rigidly with each bone, creating a bit of roughness but no jitter. In non-skeletal animation, one could move a slider to increase the precision with which the animation tool stores coordinates. Remember that even 64-bit floating point isn't perfect.
Re:Control mesh noise with a slider (Score:3, Interesting)
to the IEEE-754 standard is perfect. It is not
real arithematic, but it is well-defined.
Re:Lossiness? No, try patents (Score:3, Informative)
There's a page for this on the ECMA site... (Score:5, Informative)
There's also a separate 3DIF [3dif.org] site.
CX (Score:5, Funny)
will allow 3D data to be more easily incorporated into other apps, such as web browsers
I hope the Christmas Island people get their act together before this becomes widely used... the horror... the horror...
Re:CX (Score:5, Funny)
goatse-like 3D structure screenshot hosted on a website not safe for work [fleshbot.com]
3D what? (Score:5, Insightful)
3D wireframes?
3D solid objects?
3D interior spaces?
JPEG != MP3, and wishing will not make disparate needs and functionality the same.
Re:3D what? (Score:4, Funny)
Lossy (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, they're probably working on a lossy 3D format. Duh.
The fact that MP3 and JPEG are lossy formats doesn't have anything to do with this, and no, it's not "interesting".
Re:Lossy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lossy (Score:2)
Re:Lossy (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh come on, the point of the analogy was just to bring to light how far they wanted to take adoption, reading anything into the lossiness of the respective formats is trifling and borderline pedantic.
Re:Lossy (Score:2)
but not ubiquitous
not evreyone thinks 'aha, a bmp is what I store images in'
or 'aha, a wav file suits my audio storage needs'
.3ds (Score:2, Informative)
Re:.3ds (Score:2)
They've even nicely documented the format for you: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?id=7525
Re:.3ds (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:.3ds (Score:4, Insightful)
lossy formats interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about VRML (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it not scalable or something?
I was always under the impression that it was as open as html.
Re:What about VRML (Score:5, Interesting)
I would like to know what's lacking in VRML. A lack of foresight (didnt plan ahead for programmable pixel shaders, funtional textures, etc)?
And if it's that sort of problem, how can this new format not fall into the same traps, since the authors likely don't have magical crystal balls that tell them what types of information GPUs of the future will want to store.
Re:What about VRML (Score:2)
early implementations pretty much killed vrml, not because the format was particularly lacking but constraints in bandwidth, lack of hardware acceleration etc.
Now it is tainted with those memories, proabably never to be seen again.
Re:What about VRML (Score:5, Informative)
What's bad about VRML was that the VRML '97 spec was too damn complicated (IMHO), and a few years later, the really good free browser (CosmoPlayer) got sold off by SGI, and after changing hands several times, apparently disappeared from the face of the Earth. There are other browsers, but they don't plug in to browsers as easily.
The other problem I heard people complain about (but was not a problem for me) was the "JavaScript" problem -- people on comp.lang.vrml didn't like that their web VRML was human-readable and stealable. CNN used to have the occasional VRML model on their site for interesting things, but switched a while ago to something called Cult3D, which appears to be binary, and to have pricey development tools -- I don't know if the format is actually proprietary, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Of course, the *real* reason it died was because I learned it...
Re:What about VRML (Score:5, Interesting)
key difference: vrml is for realtime 3d.
interesting note: more students have had success with using the unreal engine to model spaces. it is much prettier, and the navigation is better.
Re:What about VRML (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe it or not, the technology probably wasn't the biggest issue. It's a classic example of a solution searching for a problem; there was no ki
Why VRML sucked (Score:4, Informative)
Basically VRML wasn't designed to scratch a real itch, just a theoretical one. It was just a neat idea that was designed by committee, with predictable results.
Re:Why VRML sucked (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not committees that ruin concepts, but lack of a concrete agenda. Start with a solid goal, continue with cutting edge research, and round it out with a coherent standards doc. That's how you make a file format.
Re:VRML isn't just a description language (Score:3, Informative)
VRML files are designed to be human readable because VRML isn't just a mere 3D description language, but also a programming language.
The very big advantage of VRML/X3D for designing virtual worlds is that
Re:What about VRML (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the problem with VRML lay in a bad choice of applications it was applied to.
When I go to an online store, I have no need to be able to "walk through" a virtual mall. Hell, that's why I'm on the online store in the first place, the 2d format has greater ease of use for that application.
VRML was trying to shoe-horn 3D experiences in where they weren't required. I'd love to have a 3D rotatable/scalable graphic of something I'm looking at purchasing. That's a good idea. What I don't need is a storefront and product listing that requires me navigating a 3D environment.
3D chat rooms? Perhaps cool. Not a huge improvement over standard 2d interfaces though, and again, having to navigate in a 3d environment to find a particular person is simply a pain.
The trick is, use 3D for where it's useful, and discard it where it's not. VRML was lousy at that.
Re:What about VRML (Score:2)
Just because it's open doesn't mean that it's a useable standard. I don't think that any sane person today would consider VRML any kind of "standard" any more than Netscape (the browser) is a "standard".
It might be something like this: (Score:2)
But flash and Quicktime started being used extensively by developers, and each has a "solution" for viewing 3D models that's just as useful as featureful as a seperate VRML browser might be. So targeting VRML became kinda pointless because other more common frameworks had support, and there are excellent content creation tools for those environments.
So no one had any reason to keep the VRML st
Re:It might be something like this: (Score:5, Interesting)
They originally tried to do this through the Web3D consortium (the owner of the VRML standard) under the guise of a CAD format. After a lot of manipulation of the members and several other very dodgy things, the consortium told Intel to get lost. It's now just popped up again under another guise. The laughable thing is that this file format is completely inappropriate for CAD requirements. It's somewhere between a scene graph file format and a programming API, with neither being particularly good. For example, it's not extensible and has a lot of hardcoded strategies. If you wanted to extend or change an iimplementation of one item in the modifier chain, it would require complete reimplementation of the entire system. For example, changing the humanoid representation to using shaders for rendering the mesh was impossible. The entire format is designed around CPU-based rendering. Video hardware accelaration is not possible for about 95% of the spec.
Nothing has changed at Intel since we were dealing with them for the last 2 years on it. Effectively this project is 2 engineers and one manager trying to save their arse and the code from failed Shockwave efforts.
An example - the press release says it will be an ISO standard. The ISO people have no idea what Intel is talking about as they've not been approached yet. It would fall under either SC24 or SC29 subcommittes (SC24 3D graphics, SC29 is programming and home to MPEG) and both of these committees already have standards that fullfil these requirements (MPEG and VRML/X3D). It wouldn't make it past the front gate at ISO.
Re:What about VRML (Score:2)
I've seen sample QTVR scenes with embedded hot spots, URLs and QT Sprites (water ripples, fires and smoke puffs). That would have made killing web sites, games and (!) easter eggs.
Re:What about VRML (Score:3, Insightful)
VRML is as open as HTML, it's an ISO specification. There's the next revision of it going through ISO process right now called X3D (final ISO vote on the IS acceptance ends June 30, so see an announcment at Siggraph). X3D takes all the good stuff from VRML and expands it again to allow for multiple different encoding strategies (VRML-style, XML, binary etc) and compone
Re:What about VRML (Score:3, Interesting)
Mainly, VRML kept trying to position itself as an internet technology, as opposed to a simple, standardized file format. This lead to a couple of nasty effects. First was the fact that it was pretty well designed to look like HTML. This, in and of itself, isn't terrible; I've always been a big fan of the taxt based .obj file. However, it meant th
One forming defacto standard... (Score:5, Interesting)
so.... (Score:5, Funny)
I can't see 3D graphics! (Score:2, Funny)
Blender support (Score:5, Interesting)
But...
One restriction I wouldn't mind, however, is the same sort of compatibility requirement that JAVA has: If something follows the format, it MUST follow it exactly and have no proprietary extentions. This tripped up MS when they tried to hijack JAVA for their own nefarious purposes.
Just my views on this...
Standards (Score:5, Funny)
The Register is reporting that more than 30 companies are working together to define a new file format intended to serve as a universal 3D file format.
I forget who said it, but I think this fits very well: "The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from."
Re:Standards (Score:5, Informative)
According to this [ucl.ac.uk], it was Grace Hopper [sdsc.edu].
Danger, Danger... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Danger, Danger... (Score:3, Funny)
Again? (Score:2)
We had VRML.
And an XML based X3D (?)
Were those other formats that bad that we need U3D?
Re:Again? (Score:2)
Pro/Engineer (Score:2)
Yet another closed proprietary format ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Could be good (Score:5, Interesting)
But how general will it be? If it can handle detailed CAD models, and open landscape, and UT2003 style maps, high polygon characters and so on, then will it end up being unspace-effective for all of them?
Is there a reason why right now 3DS seems to be the nearest to a standard we have, when it doesn't even have many features?
JPEG might be the standard for images, but it isn't used for everything: Sometimes PNG and TIFF are used for particular reasons. TGA and PNG for example support Alpha channels, while JPEG does not. My friend draws pictures, and sometimes she gets good compression with JPEG, but sometimes the quality loss is terrible. Sometimes GIF is better, or something PNG is. And then there are vector graphics.
MP3 is nearly a standard, but we use OGG for political/legal reasons, or a lossless format when that is important. Real is often used when the sound needs to be streaming.
So, really, how useful will this standard be? And how free?
Lossy 3d? (Score:3, Funny)
Well, this is probably a sign that the new 3d format will probably reduce 3d files to 2d or 2.5d. So you'll lose some of the third dimension when you save in it.
As one person Reluctantly in the 3D industry (Score:4, Interesting)
about a year ago i started doing 3D animations, this year i wanted to buy a collection of 3D models but in the end i found that 1 the app that i use has terrible support for model importing (blender) and 2 there are two many different formats out there. someone previosly mentioned 3ds but thats the stupidest thing ive ever heard because 1 its proprietary 2 it sucks. the closest thing to a standard is the
and for the 3ds guy your modeling software sucks and is a POS.
finally! we will be able to embrace 3d (Score:2)
Comparison to formats... (Score:3, Informative)
I fail to see how this will be successfull... (Score:5, Interesting)
As there are so many different ways to represent the geometric structure of a 3D object that tie to the engine rendering that object. The fact of the matter is that 3D graphics rendering is still a non-trivial problem which requires optimizations for the use in question. Just about any piece of hardware still in use can handle JPEG and MP3 without a notable performance hit.
3D applications still push the limits of the hardware they run on and are keyed for specific intents; 3D games sacrifice detail and accuracy of modeling the interaction of light on surfaces for speed, while povray and RenderMan go for full hardcore ray tracing to make sure each pixel on the screen is accurately representing a reflective light model to the capacity of their respective engines.
Sadly, I don't think this arena has trivialized to a one size fits all format yet.
Re:I fail to see how this will be successfull... (Score:3, Interesting)
I predict... (Score:2, Funny)
It will be XML based (i.e. text file with tags), use MIME to encode bitmaps, and be so bloated you will need a 10GHz P5 with 4GB of RAM just to render a rotating "Hello, World!" file...
Dear lord... (Score:4, Funny)
Dear XML ... (Score:3, Informative)
And it is quite possible to specify an XML format which would serve as the "canonical" format for a model and specify one or more "shorthand" formats that encode the XML format more concisely with rules for transforming one to the other.
XML has several advantages - it is text based so can be easily edited by humans when ne
The standardization would benefit consumers more (Score:4, Funny)
Ooooor, it's interesting that they compared it to a few formats that have allowed real people with real-world storage capacity to enjoy/share media of different flavors.
"Dude, you should see this 3D monster I created! Just let me plug my iEverything into the accompanying 70 lb. iRenderFarm."
Apple? SGI? (Score:2)
30 companies? Good luck trying to get an agreement (Score:3, Interesting)
These guys want to get 30 companies to agree to one specific file format that would probably have an impact on the work they do???
Good luck!
Re:30 companies? Good luck trying to get an agreem (Score:4, Insightful)
TIFF had so many options that it was years before a common subset developed.
MPEG video is a maze of twisty little codecs all different.
How is it going to handle programmable shaders? (Score:2)
So, basically it's a scam... (Score:2)
I see what's goin on here. Microsoft and Intel... always making things unnecessarily bloated just to convince people that they always need to keep upgrading their CPUs!
So this is basically a "no one has any reason to buy our 3 ghz chips, so let's force them into do
MP3 and JPEG (Score:3, Offtopic)
Additionally, the demand for small files, and therefore for MP3 and JPEG, draws on preexisting "content" sets that are enormous; all the audio data ever recorded (including in analog media), and all the static, 2D visual data ever recorded (including photos, texts, drawings, etc). By comparison, there are currently relatively few recordings of true 3D data; and the present uses of that recorded data are so specialized that a general file format would probably be insufficient anyway.
So the day that Wal-mart starts selling digital cameras that laser-scan the whole room and render a complete 3D model, and the day they start selling holographic projectors for those 3D models, at prices that are reasonable for personal use, then there will be a market for a generic 3D file format.
Geometry Images (Score:3, Informative)
I was excited for a moment... (Score:3, Interesting)
So what's the point here? Will this enable me to model dancing hamsters and spinning thingies in Alias or Rhino and export them directly to Front Page and Power Point? Be still, my beating heart.
Consortium announces universal file format (Score:4, Funny)
Burbank, CA - A consortium of one programmer is working to
define a new file format intended to seve as a universal
file format for all data. The new file format will be
named the 'Universal File Format', of UFF. According to
the consortium, he hopes to make the new format as
standard as MP3 has become for audio, and JPEG has
become for 2D images.
"The basic structure of my file format is a sequence of
8-bit numbers," says the consortium, "in which each
number can represent anything required by the users of
the file."
JPEG is not a lossy format (Score:5, Informative)
In common parlance, however, JPEG refers to the *JPEG baseline algorithm* which is lossy (but allows you to define the amount of loss). Note that even though you can create images that are visually lossless, baseline JPEG can never produce truly (mathematically) lossless compression. (no, not even if you set quality=100)
If you want lossless JPEG compression, there's the standard called *lossless JPEG* (LJPEG) which doesn't provide a high degree of compression though. There's also *JPEG-LS* which is another JPEG standard which provides for lossless compression.
If that's not enough JPEG for you, there's the new standard called *JPEG 2000* which allows a host of features such as the ability to choose between lossy and lossless compression, progressive transmission etc.
So calling JPEG lossy is true only if you are referring to baseline JPEG.
hopefully they get it right (Score:3, Informative)
Universal ever-evolving crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Universal everything is a misnomer, because everything is in a constant state of evolution. What works today, will be passé in a year or two when DirectX n+1 is released with new gimmicks. Standards are good for fixed concepts, or at least ones that take a long time before having significant changes. 3D ain't one of them.
Overambitious? (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps the best approach is a pseudo file format with plug in codecs, like Microsoft uses for its video playback.
.u3d already in use! (Score:5, Informative)
maybe not...
These guys are *clueless* (Score:4, Insightful)
They want to define something universal that everyone making 3D software will use as a native data format -- the two main products at Alias (Studio Tools and Maya) don't even use the same file format (because they have different problem domains -- but at least they share the same interpretation of nurbs
In StudioTools, some of the textures and images in the scene can be the result of compositing a bunch of layers (like photoshop) -- are they going to embedd a photoshop like 2D format in their 3D format? Others are 16 bit/channel or float per channel -- Now add trimmed nurbs, hierarchical subdivision surfaces, construction history, particle systems, dynamics, kinematics, animation tracks, procedurally generated textures, fluids, the list goes on and on -- the number of node types for StudioTools and Maya alone would be in the thousands. I'm sure that CAD and Engineering software packages would add a couple thousand unique ones to that list.
The mind just boggles at the complexity of what they're attempting. I'm quite sure they have not the faintest idea of just how large a chunk of work they've bitten off.
When I was at IBM (10 years ago now), we used to call this sort of thing "boiling the ocean". ie. comsume enourmous resources and money for extended periods of time while producing no discernable and/or useful results.
Ian Ameline
Software Architect,
Alias.
(Not speaking for my employer.)
where the hell is pixar (Score:3, Insightful)
isn't pixar one of the more popular 3d companies? at least in movies they are, and their RenderMan 3d format is pretty damn popular among photorealistic renderers. There's nothing that I know of that a RenderMan file cannot represent. I'm wondering why they're not making some effort to collaborate in this.
another question: why is apple a part of this when Pixar is not? Steve Jobs is CEO of both companies, as we all know.
It won't be universal not now not ever (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is simply that the standards documents become so large that no one can implement them, no one can follow all the changes in them, everyone will be behind, no one will be compatible with each other. I'm talking tens of thousands of pages of standards documents, for starters. And people thought "web based" and it's hundreds of related acronyms is bad? Just you wait!
Intel should just look to history and all the failed attempts at reforming 3D (IGES, STEP, and VRML to name a few) and revise their goals a bit lower.
Intel's Motive (Score:3, Interesting)
But what about Intel's motive? From the article:
Getting a chipmaker involved in a 3D file format committee sounds like a good way to ensure a very computationally inefficient format that needs custom hardware to encode and decode. Heck, why not get some RAM manufacturers, hard drive manufacturers and bandwidth suppliers on the committee to make sure the file sizes are huge, too?
again ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Despite even a good deal of acception, such as the FiLMBOX format, I keep seeing people falling back to
- export and import
- export and import
- export and import through third party plugins
- in-house export/import routines
I'd be all for an XML format. Yes, I know, storage space.. but considering there's a limited datatypeset, a compression routine could easily be written that collapses the file to a tidy binary, which a decompressor could then stream right back out to tidy XML. But whatever