Solved

Regarding FBX Reader/Writer

  • 27 March 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 7 views

Badge

Hi!

I have been looking into the FBX reader/writer functionality in the 2017 version. All works as intended regarding the 3Dmodelling which is great! But i was hoping to add/read attribute data to/from this format.

We use the Unreal engine to visualize and have the FBX format as our input to it.

I read on the reader/writer page for FBX that it is not available in this version

So, attribute data on the FBX format, is this something that is being looked into at the moment or is it beyond the horizon?

We are mostly looking forward to the potential of writing the attribute data onto a FBX model.

Thanks

/David

icon

Best answer by fmelizard 29 March 2017, 21:22

View original

3 replies

Userlevel 3
Badge +13

Hi @davidwesstrom. I passed your request onto Development to get their feedback. To start, they are wondering whether you could provide a sample or an example of what sort of attribute types you hope to work with (it is possible to add attachments).

From Development:

 

"As FBX supports arbitrary "user properties" on its nodes, we could devise a scheme to correlate these with feature attributes and/or geometry traits. Nothing is implemented yet as it seemed so open-ended, and best to wait for a real use case to work with (thanks davidwesstrom!).Here's someone talking about working this out for use with 3DS MAX: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18124397/fbx-sdk-how-to-retrieve-user-defined-object-properties Here's something about Unreal specifically: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?103566-FBX-for-importing-user-properties-and-more"Currently, we copy traits to user properties when writing to 3D PDF, so the same capability for FBX would be consistent. Dependent on what attributes you hope to work with, Development could then determine an estimated date for adding this to the product. Thanks!
Badge

Hi @davidwesstrom. I passed your request onto Development to get their feedback. To start, they are wondering whether you could provide a sample or an example of what sort of attribute types you hope to work with (it is possible to add attachments).

From Development:

 

"As FBX supports arbitrary "user properties" on its nodes, we could devise a scheme to correlate these with feature attributes and/or geometry traits. Nothing is implemented yet as it seemed so open-ended, and best to wait for a real use case to work with (thanks davidwesstrom!).Here's someone talking about working this out for use with 3DS MAX: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18124397/fbx-sdk-how-to-retrieve-user-defined-object-properties Here's something about Unreal specifically: https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?103566-FBX-for-importing-user-properties-and-more"Currently, we copy traits to user properties when writing to 3D PDF, so the same capability for FBX would be consistent. Dependent on what attributes you hope to work with, Development could then determine an estimated date for adding this to the product. Thanks!

Hi! thank you for a swift response!

I will get back to you with a proper dataset as soon as possible!

/David

Badge

Hello again @NatalieAtSafe !

I have know talked to our Visualization team and i have seem to have misunderstood the issue. We use a external JSON file that holds all attribute data and link it to corresponding FBX.

The main issue is that we lose the instancing/blocking of objects when converting from DWG/3DS to FBX. However when reading a FBX file and "convert" it to a FBX file these settings remain.

For example, we call on a dwg file with a block were there are several iterations of this block. When using FME to convert to FBX, FME creates unique/standalone objects of each block. Same goes for 3DS or even when creating objects in FME with Creator->Cloner (is this best practice?)

Another issue connected to this one is that we lose the insertion point of the instances/blocks when converting from FBX to FBX. (insertion/pivot point is set to 0,0,0 in the exported FBX file). We believe this is an universal issue for the conversion to FBX.

I have sent test data to support@safe.com and added a link to this page.

This data contains one dwg and one fbx file containing simple blocks so you can perform the same operations.

Reply