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Table of Contents > QUARC > User's Guide > Creating User Interfaces > Creating Visualizations > Creating Your Own Content

3ds Max X3D Plugin

The visualization blocks make it easy to assemble your animation scene, but you first need the content to display in your scene. QUARC includes a number of different meshes, textures, and scene files in the Quanser/QUARC/resources folder, but in many cases you will want to create textures and meshes that represent your specific system. Two tools are presently supported including Autodesk's 3ds Max (www.autodesk.com) versions 2008 to 2012, and the open source Blender (www.blender.org). Included with the installation of QUARC are x3d exporter plugins for both packages.

This help page covers the details of the 3ds Max plugin. If you would like information on the Blender plugin, please refer to the Blender x3d plugin help page.

Exporting from 3ds Max

Install

3ds Max is commercial software available from Autodesk (www.autodesk.com). The plugin will only be installed if a supported copy of 3ds Max is found. If you install 3ds Max after installing QUARC, you can go to the Windows Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs (Programs And Features in Vista), find QUARC and click the Change button. When the install dialog opens select Repair and the installation will attempt to reinstall the plugin.

The use of 3ds Max is beyond the scope of this help page, however, a few useful tips are included in the mesh construction considerations section. You will need to refer to the documentation included with 3ds Max or online tutorials for modelling techniques. This page will focus on the details of exporting meshes for use in your visualizations.

After you have created your mesh, go to the File menu (Application menu in 3ds Max 2011) and export (to export all objects), or export selected (to export just the objects currently selected) to export your scene meshes.

Exporting your mesh from 3ds Max

At the next dialog, change the Save as type to "Quanser X3D", and enter a filename.

Select the Quanser X3D file type and enter a filename.

This name will be used as a prefix to the mesh names.

The mesh name will be appended to the file name when multiple meshes are exported as separate files.

It will also be used as the scene file if that option is selected on the next dialog. Click the Save button to continue to the options dialog.

Exporting your mesh from 3ds Max

The following options are available:

Clicking the Save button will then export your meshes to the specified x3d files. If you wish to convert your x3d files to the q3d format, you can use the included qc_convert_to_q3d Matlab function. Since the q3d format is binary, the files can be significantly smaller than the ASCII x3d files. No tools are provided to change from q3d back to x3d or any other format, so this can be beneficial for distributing 3d models for viewing, but where you do not want someone to be able to put it in another CAD program.

Mesh Construction Considerations

 

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