TOOLS: PPM -> SFImage Converter?

Mark D. Pesce ([email protected])
Thu, 29 Jun 1995 14:58:30 -0700

VRML List Members:

I've been playing with VRML texture maps while working on the book (almost
done!) and I've found that our purposeful whole in the texture map
specification has made things easy on the browser implementers while making
it rather difficult on the browser users.

WebSpace understands SGI RGB format. Worldview will interpret GIF/JPEG.
QMosiac...well, I don't even know what kind of texture maps QMosaic understands.

In any case, the common format, the one they all must adhere to, by the
dictates of the VRML 1.0 specification, is the SFImage field. This field is
easy to understand, and is very well documented in the specfication.

All of which lead

  • (source code, only, please) which convert from any of the popular formats to
    SFImage. Upon thinking about it, it seems like a reasonable extension to
    the PBMPlus tools would be a ppmtosfimage tool which could suck in a
    portable pix map and spit out an SFImage field. Then we could convert from
    any of the formats accepted by PBMPlus (which is almost all formats) and
    output SFImage modules to use as texture maps within VRML.

    Does anyone know of such a tool? Is anyone willing to write one? It would
    be a great benefit to the whole community, as this is something we all need.

    Mark Pesce
    VRML List Moderator