Following up on my question here, I would like to know if there might be more FME users out there who'd also like some enhancements for 3D.
I am mainly thinking of full appearance support, meaning that FME should be able to deal with complex materials that include alpha maps, bump maps etc. and not just the basic texture. This is important when converting format A (e.g. SketchUp) into format B (e.g. Google KML/COLLADA), because visual information gets lost in the process, which might lead to a 3D model that simply doesn't look the same or even looks bad.
Let me be clear: I don't need full 3D support. This would take years to build and there are many programs out there that are probably more suited for the job. I also don't think that the Data Inspector should become so advanced that it's able to render these complex appearances.
What would be nice though, if tools like Grasshopper (Rhino) could work side by side with FME. It already offers a very similar user experience. If these two applications could be combined, it would become a very powerful 3D ETL suite!
