Any chance to reverse OBJ insertion process?

[George Ioannidis]

In nXt, we are able to insert textured and UV mapped 3D object into AutoCAD. Obviously, there is some kind of built-in OBJ and 3DS file translator in nXt.

The question fro Roy:

Is there any chance, some day, we could have the reversed routine, in other words to be able to EXPORT the whole textured and mapped 3D model to an OBJ file, from within the nXt?

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

It's not on the current todo list-- nor has the demand for this sort of thing been particularly high.  However, it isn't very difficult.  Either I or the guys at renderplus could certainly do it.

[George Ioannidis]

Thanks Roy.

There is an application which adds OBJ export ability to AutoCAD, developed by SYCODE company. The development has been stopped at AutoCAD 2012 though. Also its price is quite high I think. Additionally, newer versions of AutoCAD can export 3D model in FBX format, which can be imported in other software easily. So the existence of ACAD2OBJ could just simplify the whole process. And nXt could become an interesting alternative to Sycode app, not only for just export the 3D mesh, but also for being able to do great renders and export textured models from AutoCAD to other, more advanced, CG and VFX industry, renderers.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

The fact that they quit development is a pretty good indication that demand wasn't very high for this sort of thing.

[George Ioannidis]

Or because it did just a simple export without any other data (texture coordinates etc.) and for just that its price was really steep.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

Yep, AutoCAD (unless they've changed something very recently) does not handle UV texture coordinates on vertices very well.  It's the reason our obj importer uses a custom object.  Obj only has UV texture coordinates.  It's actually quite a brain-dead format that has managed to survive due to its simplicity and text file (human readable) format.  Like I said-- this wouldn't be too hard to do, I suspect there would be limited demand for it, though.

[George Ioannidis]

Thank you Roy, it was an interesting conversation anyway.