[Chimera-users] Regarding blender

[Jean-Didier Maréchal]

Hi,

Thanks Greg. I have actually tried yesterday the same importer you found.
However, I initially concluded that it was not working very well. Today,
after having insisted all morning, I found a way to move forward anyways. I
have to say that I work on the last released version of blender.

Using this .x3d file importer, I saw that importing files that only contains
ribbons works ok. However, importing files with sticks and spheres, do not
work that well: you just see one sphere at the origin of the 3d world. With
time, I figured out that in reality, all the geometrical figures are
overlapped in the center of the world. If you guys have the same problem
than me then here seems to be the first trick. 

Import your .x3d file from chimera in blender using the .x3d imported Greg
mentioned. Once imported, the 3d window shows the sticks and spheres
overlapped at the center of the world. Do the following: select all the mesh
(menu select --> select all by type--> mesh), then enter in Grab/move mode
(type g) and then you'll see all the sphere and stick back to their places. 

There are still remaining problems on this. In particular the xyz axis
associated to all objects have strange behaviors but I am too short on
blender's knowledge to figure out what is going wrong. Matthew may be you'll
have some idea? 

For the moment, with this trick I can get a bit further with blender. Hope
we'll have some feedback.

Cheers,
JD




-----Mensaje original-----
De: Greg Couch [mailto:gregc at cgl.ucsf.edu] 
Enviado el: martes, 14 de octubre de 2008 20:52
Para: Dr. Jean-Didier Maréchal
CC: chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu
Asunto: Re: [Chimera-users] Regarding blender

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008, Dr. Jean-Didier Maréchal wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I saw on the mailing list some information on exporting/importing 3D
files.
> However, I can't really figure out what would be the best way to export
> chimera scene so that blender can import them.
>
> Is the x3d format the best? Which plug-in do you use? Is there another way
> better?
>
> Cheers,
> JD

For chimera, the X3D format is the best export format.  So the best
solution would be to use a X3D importer for blender.  There doesn't
appear to be one that comes with blender, so you'll have to google
for one (e.g., <http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=107126>
looks promising).

Looking at the blender documentation,
<http://www.blender.org/download/python-scripts/import-export/>, I see
that the only common format, that chimera exports and blender imports,
is the Wavefront OBJ format.  But chimera only exports surfaces in OBJ
format, so no spheres, cylinders, lines, nor ribbons.  That may or may
not be sufficient for you.

 	If you find a solution, please let us know,

 	Greg Couch
 	UCSF Computer Graphics Lab