Creating Your Own Content

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

Creating 3D models can range from simple to very complex depending on the detail and the tools you have available to you. The visualization blocks support the x3d format which can be created from a number of different packages. Presently, QUARC provides support plugins for Blender (a free program available from www.blender.org), and Autodesk’s commercial program 3ds Max (www.autodesk.com), but other software is also available for the task. For the details of each of these plugins, please refer to the Blender x3d plugin and 3ds Max plugin reference pages.

After creating your x3d files, you can optionally convert them to the proprietary q3d format using the qc_convert_to_q3d Matlab function. Since the q3d format is binary, the files can be significantly smaller than the x3d ASCII 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.

To create texture maps for your 3D models, you will need a paint program that can generate png, bmp, tif, or jpg file formats. Although this is possible with the standard Windows Paint program, tools such as the freely available Gimp (www.gimp.org) or the commercially available Adobe Photoshop (https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html) are far more powerful for content creation. Note that only the bmp and png file formats saved in 32 bit formats will support an alpha channel. To map textures onto your meshes, the x3d files must include texture coordinates. For details of how to arrange the texture coordinates of your mesh, refer to the documentation of your selected 3D modelling software.

If you are interested in creating your own skyboxes, then all you need to do is create an environment to replace the texture on the skybox. You can use a tool such as Daz3D Studio (https://www.daz3d.com/daz_studio). Blender and 3ds Max are also capable of producing the requisite views, but an environmental generation package such as Daz3D Studio has a number of nice tools for procedurally creating skies, clouds, and various vistas.

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