I like F3D, but it really struggles loading large files and there is no feedback to tell you it is loading.
It would also be cool if it offered conversions between formats (as it clearly demonstrates the ability to take some file and render it, it should be able to reverse that operation in most cases too).
I never knew about the bindings, it may be cool to experiment with some procedurally generated models, or using some form of network model to produce 3D models. I remember from quite some time ago that would procedurally generate star ships [1].
There should be a progress bar showing on the bottom, if there is not, this is a bug and it would be nice of you to report it :).
Large file can take some time but should be loaded at some point, but indeed, no more feedback but the progress bar.
Conversions are hard because you need not only a reader, but a writer too, and they should all be implemented. That being said, I think it would be cool to have another project based on the libf3d trying to go in this direction. It will not be in F3D though.
Reading is one thing, making the other format use as many features as the original where possible, is another. It's understandable, but one always has meshlab for that :)
I recently had the problem of trying to convert STL to STEP (3D printing vs CNC), but made no progress with this. Is something like MeshLab suitable for this? If I can't find a solution I may just end up writing a tool to do the conversion for me...
It seems really neat! I recently received a .usdz file and was hoping this would be able to work with it. Unfortunately, that's not the case yet (but there's an issue about it [0]). Compiling the entire OpenUSD framework was a bit of a failure here on Void Linux.
Shameless plug: if you are interested in viewing and/or embedding glTF or USDZ files on the web, I worked on an HTML element for that called <model-viewer>
Model viewer is a nice tool! I was paid to make some assets for a model viewer website, but I couldn't get any of my model's colors to show correctly. Once I realized that AO was used as direct exposure value, it was smooth sailing ahead.
Most of the time I can't control what light my models are shown in, so it was great to have some control of how it was presented.
My gut instinct is game developers or others in the asset pipeline, which have hundreds/thousands of obj, fbx, etc files laying around, and 3d editors such as Blender are not exactly fast to open if you just want a quick preview.
Windows 10 came with an application to view 3D models in obj and other formats, but it's no longer included in Windows 11. You have to download it separately now (it's still free).
The only other Free Software STEP reader of any competence might be the one in gCAD3d. It's written in C. But even if you can read STEP there is the problem of triangulating trimmed NURBS surfaces. I've been wanting to lift that reader and put it in Solvespace for linking parts in assembly but it's a big job and we still can't support all the types of geometry you might find in STEP.
Because we generate so many assets, our preferred solution would be a "3DAM/3DCMS", which there seem to be a few of now. However, a 3D file manager where we can open multiple viewers / objects from a higher level directory ("open folder as project") would help with our open source collaborations :)
It's not working for me; installed f3d 1.3.1 via the package manager on Ubuntu 23.04 and when I try to open any of the STL files I generated with Inventor or Fusion that I normally open with/import into Cura just fine to interact with or print but all I see is a blank canvas.
EDIT
Trying it from the command line and I see the problem: a message is posted to stderr complaining that the file does not exist, probably because this is an smb path and it (f3d) is doing some weird thing trying to open the path itself instead of going through the default filesystem apis.
Copying the file to the local fs and then opening it with f3d works, so as far as I'm concerned, this is at the very least a bug in that f3d doesn't forward fatal errors to the UI and only posts them to stderr, which is hidden/swallowed by default when opening f3d via the desktop environment or by double-clicking on the .stl file (as no terminal is shown), if not to also mention a bug opening files from smb or network shares or more generally through the gvfs extensions.
Regarding the error, you are correct, we have not implemented a log dialog. We plan to improve that in the future but its not a small work:
https://github.com/f3d-app/f3d/issues/29
W/o looking -- Ubuntu, and installed from the package manager? I bet that it's a snap package, and the mount namespace isn't allowing access to that smb mount.
In my previous (work) life it would've been incredibly useful to have an editor that could open the yearly, not-backward-neither-forward-compatible iterations of 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD and Maya file formats. Especially when custom renders were involved. I still have somewhere a 3DSMax 9/Vray file that could be opened correctly only on the very same machine that wrote it.
.max file format is intentionally hostile to developers to implement it, forcing them to use the proprietary library/environment. In my experience .obj (binary or ASCII) or .lwo have the best interoperability.
brew version seems to be an older version, lots of command line options failed to work.
after downloading from the web page:
the macos arm download is corrupted I think, x86 works fine, currently watching the orc "thing" angrily stand in place.
It would also be cool if it offered conversions between formats (as it clearly demonstrates the ability to take some file and render it, it should be able to reverse that operation in most cases too).
I never knew about the bindings, it may be cool to experiment with some procedurally generated models, or using some form of network model to produce 3D models. I remember from quite some time ago that would procedurally generate star ships [1].
[1] https://blendermarket.com/products/procedural-starship-space...