Render DGA to RI

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to send files containing model descriptions in COLLADA-format (file extension DGA) to a renderer implementing The RenderMan interface. It will be available in form of a command line utility and a library. It is licensed under a BSD library.

Though it does not make a lot of sense for a modeling application to take the detour via COLLADA to render images, there are some cases where it might be beneficial to use a tool like the one created in this project:

Asset Management System: An asset management system managing assets in COLLADA format could use the program from this project to automatically create preview images for newly added assets.
Asset Generation Program: This projects program might also be of use for programs creating assests which are not modeling applications as such. So especially for visualization programs which is intended to allow its users to import the data being visualized into a modeling program to create nice pictures, it is important to find a broadly supported and well defined format. COLLADA is such a format. But if you also want to offer your customers a way to generate a nice rendering without a lot of effort, it would be best to be able to render the COLLADA data. Implementing a second export format is much more work to be done.

COLLADA

There are not many well defined interchange formats for 3D assets. COLLADA probably has its problems, some I will hit once I start to work more with it, but at least is actively in development, is rather new and so hopefully doesn't carry around a lot of historic baggage and is a good fit for what modern modeling programs support and need. Also it seems that the support for it is already quite good and hopefully will also grow in the future.

RenderMan

The choice for RenderMan was not easy, because there are a number of free renderers, examples are POVRAY or Yafray, so why choose a propriatry format like RenderMan. The main reason is, that The RenderMan Interface is a format supported by a number of renderers, both free and commercial, while neither POVRAY not Yafray use a format which is shared by another renderer. In the case of POVRAY the file format is just outdated, you notice its roots in the late '80s. Two of the free renderers using The RenderMan Interface are Pixie and aqsis.

Project Links

Project Page on Sourceforge

COLLADA is a trademark of the Khronos Group.