Streaming data from 3dsMax into Blender, with connection to Three.js WebGL client using a websocket.
Notes for running 3dsMax2009 with Wine, first install 32bit Linux, and then run these commands
winetricks dotnet30 winetricks d3dx9 winetricks msxml6 cd Autodesk\ 3ds\ Max\ Design\ 2009/main/32bit/ msiexec /i 3dsMax2009_32-bit.msi winetricks vcrun2005
I have been in the Philippines for the past several years, most of that time has been in north western Mountain Province - homeland of the Kankanaey Igorots. Soon I will be traveling back to L.A. California.
Jeroen Bakker has a excellent article about Blender's binary file format and its DNA structure here, he is also the author or Blender-Aid, that contains a script for loading and saving .blend files. Unfortunately the loading script is not ideal for general use: ie. it only supports some data structures, and is missing support for array data. It is also licensed using the GNU GPL, making it incompatible with closed source software.
Last week I started work on a new .blend importer that works with Python2 and Python3, this is licensed using the "New BSD" license so it can be used by anyone without "copyleft" restrictions. The new importer supports: basic arrays, multi-dimensional arrays, nested structures, pointers, and lazy unpacking of attributes.
Parsing a .blend file has three initial steps: 1. reading the file header to get the pointer size and endianess, 2. reading all data blocks, 3. unpacking the "DNA1" block at the end. The special DNA1 block is a structure that contains a description of all C Struct types that Blender saves in a .blend file. Using this information you can unpack the all the other blocks into Python objects. Data blocks can vary in size depending on the host machine that saved the .blend file, this is because different CPU types and different Operating Systems can have different endianess, pointer and integer sizes.
import import_blend
blenderfile = import_blend.load( '/path/some.blend' )
ob = blenderfile.database['Object'][0]
print(ob)
print('-'*80)
print('object name: ' + ob.id.name)
print('data name: ' + ob.data.id.name)
≺Object: id (ID 100) = ≺Object::ID at 147229548≻ adt (*AnimData 56) sculpt (*SculptSession 0) type (short 2) = 11 partype (short 2) = 0 par1 (int 4) = 0 par2 (int 4) = 0 par3 (int 4) = 0 parsubstr (char 1) array:[64] = u'' parent (*Object 1164) track (*Object 1164) proxy (*Object 1164) proxy_group (*Object 1164) proxy_from (*Object 1164) ipo (*Ipo 132) bb (*BoundBox 104) action (*bAction 148) poselib (*bAction 148) pose (*bPose 188) data (*void 0) = ≺Object::Camera at 146475340≻ gpd (*bGPdata 120) avs (bAnimVizSettings 48) = ≺Object::bAnimVizSettings at 3075066700≻ mpath (*bMotionPath 20) constraintChannels(ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 3075065804≻ effect (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147229100≻ disp (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147227308≻ defbase (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147227116≻ modifiers (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147243084≻ mode (int 4) = 0 restore_mode (int 4) = 0 mat (*Material 768) matbits (*char 1) totcol (int 4) = 0 actcol (int 4) = 0 loc (float 4) array:[3] = [7.481131553649902, -6.5076398849487305, 5.34366512298584] dloc (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0] orig (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0] size (float 4) array:[3] = [1.0, 1.0, 1.0] dsize (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0] dscale (float 4) array:[3] = [1.0, 1.0, 1.0] rot (float 4) array:[3] = [1.1093189716339111, 0.010816991329193115, 0.8149281740188599] drot (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0] quat (float 4) array:[4] = [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0] dquat (float 4) array:[4] = [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0] rotAxis (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 1.0, 0.0] drotAxis (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 1.0, 0.0] rotAngle (float 4) = 0.0 drotAngle (float 4) = 0.0 obmat (float 4) array:[4, 4] = [[0.6858805418014526, 0.6858805418014526, 0.6858805418014526, 0.6858805418014526], [0.6858805418014526, 0.7276337742805481, -0.010816780850291252, 0.0], [0.6858805418014526, -0.010816780850291252, -0.31737011671066284, 0.8953432440757751], [0.6858805418014526, 0.0, 0.8953432440757751, -0.6106656193733215]] parentinv (float 4) array:[4, 4] = [[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0], [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], [1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]] constinv (float 4) array:[4, 4] = [[1.0000001192092896, 1.0000001192092896, 1.0000001192092896, 1.0000001192092896], [1.0000001192092896, 5.960465188081798e-08, -2.980232594040899e-08, 0.0], [1.0000001192092896, -2.980232594040899e-08, 2.9802322387695312e-08, 5.960465188081798e-08], [1.0000001192092896, 0.0, 5.960465188081798e-08, -1.776357262916724e-15]] imat (float 4) array:[4, 4] = [[0.6858804821968079, 0.6858804821968079, 0.6858804821968079, 0.6858804821968079], [0.6858804821968079, -0.31737011671066284, 0.6548619270324707, 0.0], [0.6858804821968079, 0.6548619270324707, 0.7276336550712585, -0.6106656193733215], [0.6858804821968079, 0.0, -0.6106656193733215, 0.8953432440757751]] imat_ren (float 4) array:[4, 4] = [[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0], [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]] lay (int 4) = 1 sf (float 4) = 0.0 flag (short 2) = 1024 colbits (short 2) = 0 transflag (short 2) = 0 protectflag (short 2) = 0 trackflag (short 2) = 5 upflag (short 2) = 1 nlaflag (short 2) = 0 ipoflag (short 2) = 0 scaflag (short 2) = 0 scavisflag (char 1) = u'' pad5 (char 1) = u'' dupon (int 4) = 1 dupoff (int 4) = 0 dupsta (int 4) = 1 dupend (int 4) = 100 mass (float 4) = 1.0 damping (float 4) = 0.5659443736076355 inertia (float 4) = 1.0 formfactor (float 4) = 0.4000000059604645 rdamping (float 4) = 0.6258381009101868 sizefac (float 4) = 0.0 margin (float 4) = 0.05999999865889549 max_vel (float 4) = 0.0 min_vel (float 4) = 0.0 m_contactProcessingThreshold(float 4) = 0.0 obstacleRad (float 4) = 0.0 step_height (float 4) = 0.0 jump_speed (float 4) = 0.0 fall_speed (float 4) = 0.0 pad1 (char 1) array:[4] = u'' rotmode (short 2) = 1 boundtype (char 1) = u'' collision_boundtype(char 1) = u'' restrictflag (char 1) = u'' dt (char 1) = u'\x02' dtx (char 1) = u'' empty_drawtype (char 1) = u'\x01' empty_drawsize (float 4) = 1.0 dupfacesca (float 4) = 1.0 prop (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147245132≻ sensors (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147246380≻ controllers (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147226796≻ actuators (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 3075066828≻ bbsize (float 4) array:[3] = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0] index (short 2) = 0 actdef (short 2) = 0 col (float 4) array:[4] = [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0] gameflag (int 4) = 65536 gameflag2 (int 4) = 0 bsoft (*BulletSoftBody 120) softflag (short 2) = 0 recalc (short 2) = 0 anisotropicFriction(float 4) array:[3] = [1.0, 1.0, 1.0] constraints (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147218348≻ nlastrips (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147243404≻ hooks (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147229356≻ particlesystem (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147244364≻ pd (*PartDeflect 144) = ≺Object::PartDeflect at 146476108≻ soft (*SoftBody 440) dup_group (*Group 124) body_type (char 1) = u'' shapeflag (char 1) = u'' shapenr (short 2) = 0 smoothresh (float 4) = 0.0 fluidsimSettings(*FluidsimSettings 1228) derivedDeform (*DerivedMesh 0) derivedFinal (*DerivedMesh 0) pad (*int 4) lastDataMask (uint64_t 8) = 0 customdata_mask (uint64_t 8) = 0 state (int 4) = 1 init_state (int 4) = 0 gpulamp (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147229484≻ pc_ids (ListBase 8) = ≺Object::ListBase at 147244780≻ duplilist (*ListBase 8) ima_ofs (float 4) array:[2] = [0.0, 0.0] ≻ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- object name: OBCamera data name: CACamera
C programs are often written in an "object oriented style" where functions take a pointer to a typedef'ed struct as the first argument. Using this huristic and modifying PyCParser's AST in place, we can reconstruct a Cython class that has proper methods. This provides an automated way to convert a C API into clean object oriented API.
// basic typedef struct
typedef struct A {
int x;
float y;
} A;
void set_x( A *a, int x ) {
a->x = x;
}
int get_x( A *a ) {
return a->x;
}
cdef class A:
cdef public int x
cdef public float y
def __init__(self, int x,float y):
self.x = x
self.y = y
cpdef void set_x(self, int x):
self.x = x
cpdef int get_x(self):
return self.x