imod2obj(1)                 General Commands Manual                imod2obj(1)



NAME
       imod2obj - Make a OBJ model from an IMOD model file.

SYNOPSIS
       imod2obj  [options]  IMOD_model  obj_file  [mtl_file]

DESCRIPTION
       Convert an IMOD model file to the Wavefront .obj text file format which
       a very simple but common format for interchange of 3D meshes between
       various 3D graphics programs.  OBJ files are generally much more lim-
       ited than VRML 2.0 and other 3D file formats as there is no object
       hierarchy and they lack support for primitives like spheres. As a
       result, all spheres are converted  to meshes and all meshes are listed
       in a flat array of "groups".  OBJ files do not store material proper-
       ties, but they do allow materials to be referenced in a separate "Mate-
       rial Template Library" (MTL) file which is generated if you include a
       second output file (mtl_file.mtl) on the end of the command. While OBJ
       files are widely used, not all computer programs will know how to
       interpret MTL file and thus it's likely your color and material infor-
       mation will be lost.

       The model produced will generally have similar attributes to those set
       in 3dmod's ModelView before the conversion. Specifically, objects that
       are turned off will not be included in the OBJ file. OBJ files can and
       do not allow contours to be rendered as contours, thus only objects
       which have been meshed will appear in the OBJ file.

OPTIONS
       -l     Use low-resolution meshes, if any are available.  The default is
              to use the highest resolution meshes contained in the model.
              Low resolution meshes can be produced with the -l option to
              imodmesh.

       -a     Output all objects (by default those switched off are omitted).

       -r     Rotates the entire model such that the Z axis becomes up in Y.
              This feature is useful when exporting to animation programs

       -n     Output normals (off by default as most 3d programs which import
              OBJ can generate their own normals if missing).

       -s #   Specifies number of segments to render per sphere - the more
              segments the nicer the sphere, but the more faces and thus
              longer to load. Think of this number as the number of lines of
              longitude (the ones that go up and down).  The default value is
              8 and the number of (horizontal) lines of latitude is made half
              this value.

       -i     Print spheres as icosahedrons (a surface with 20 equilateral
              triangles) instead of "standard spheres".

AUTHORS
       Andrew Noske

SEE ALSO
       3dmodv, imodmesh, imod2vrml, imod2vrml2

BUGS
       Email bug reports to mast at colorado dot edu, and CC to
       andrew_noske<AT>yahoo<DOT>com.



IMOD                                 5.2.0                         imod2obj(1)