Load uncompressed collada file using iOS Scene Kit - ios

I need to load a collada file I downloaded on iOS, I intend to use Scene Kit to do it. But reading the documentation I found out that XCode compresses the collada files on compilation time, and Scene Kit can only load the compressed files.
After some research I ran into this article where the author was able to find the scripts XCode uses and compress the files using them. The problem is that I'm not being able to run them on my server.
So my question is: Is there any other way to load collada files using scene kit? Or is there somewhere where I can find an algorithm to do the compression myself?

if you can't upload compressed files on your server and cannot convert them on the fly on the server, I'm afraid that you will have to manually parse the Collada files and instantiate all the SceneKit objects yourself.

Related

How to export and share a .gltf file as .usdz file in iOS through code? [duplicate]

I am creating an app where users can scan objects in 3D, I have a scene which I can easily save in documents directory and share it in .scn format, but I want to share this .scn file as .usdz file via UIActivityController.
Basically I am using this library https://github.com/StandardCyborg/StandardCyborgCocoa
In this library, a scene file is saved as .gltf format, but I want to share this .gltf file which is not supported on iOS devices. Apple only support .usdz file format. So, I want to convert this .gltf file into .usdz file before sharing.
I have been searching different solutions over internet for a week, but nothing is working till now.
Can anyone help me to resolve this issue?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
It's not documented, but SCNScene's write method works with a .usdz URL, at least since iOS 14.7. This is what I'm using in my app.

Convert .scn scene to usdz (Swift)

I have lost a lot of sleep over this (in the past 3 years).
I was hooping that Apple would at least be able to export its own .scn Scenes to USDZ without too much problems.
Has anyone been successful in exporting a .scn scene to USDZ from within an app?
I have tried this but to no avail:
https://github.com/piemonte/obj2usdz
Have you taken a look at this:
Batch Converting Apple SCN files into DAE
xcrun scntool --convert fileIn.scn --output fileOut.dae --format dae
Or this:
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/104553
They mention a number of ways such as converting to a dae first, and then using the free converter.

Load glTF model into RealityKit scene?

I'd like to load a glTF file generated by another program into RealityKit. I get the impression that the only way to load models into RealityKit is via USD or Reality files.
Anyone know a way to get some other model into RealityKit? Not necessarily as a file -- I'd be happy to be able to generate a MeshResource and array of Materials myself and load them in that way.
Reality Converter
Apple discussed this in the WWDC20 video "The artist’s AR toolkit".(link)
They show how to convert FBX, OBJ, USD and GLTF files to USDZs for use in Reality Composer.
Reality Converter is still in beta and needs to be downloaded from the Apple Developer website. I used it and it is quite nice.
There is also other tools you can use on the command line if this is more your thing. At WWDC 2019, Apple announced the USDZ Tools or also called USD Python Tools.
USDZ Tools is a pre-compiled Python library containing binaries of Pixar’s USD library for macOS. This is the link. You will need to download and install the library.
I would give a try to the Reality Converter first. I think it is here to stay since probably Apple has no intention to add support for glTF files in Reality Composer in the future, since they love USBZ!
I ended up using GLTFKit, an open source library by Warren Moore. It does exactly what I want -- lets me load a glTF file into SceneKit/RealityKit.
https://github.com/warrenm/GLTFKit
Alas, as you said, at the moment the only way to load your .gltf model in RealityKit scene – is firstly to convert it into .usdz model via Xcode command line tools. Also in RealityKit you can use .reality format (use it for a much faster uploading time) and .rcproject format that can be exported from Reality Composer app. These two file formats allow you store not only PBR shaders and animation but also a dynamics.
Please, read this post for further details.

Convert ( .obj / .fbx ) to .dae runtime which must support iOS SceneKit

I am facing trouble to find a way to convert .obj / .fbx to .dae (iOS scenefit Supported) automatically in background.
In python, it may be available to convert the file from .obj / .fbx to .dae file format. This process should run in background, immediately run after we will get .obj / .fbx file on server.
Here is the sample file, which we are trying to convert.
https://s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/p9-platform/DAE/barware_s11624.obj
Please help me, if you have any suggestion.
Scenekit on IOS doesn’t support dae unless it was included in the app. So because of the “iOS Scenekit Supported” requirement there is no right answer, sort of. Although there are third party libraries (like https://github.com/dmsurti/AssimpKit ) to read and convert many 3d model formats, it won’t change the fact dae isn’t properly supported on IOS Scenekit .
That said, it is possible to convert OBJ to DAE in SceneKit using the following steps (in IOS 11.2 and later)
Load the obj file into a SCNScene.
Write the scene to a file with .dae extension using SCNScene’s writeToURL method.
That will create a .dae file SceneKit can support (but not directly, i.e. would need to be included in xcode or converted first) that starts with the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<COLLADA xmlns="http://www.collada.org/2005/11/COLLADASchema" version="1.4.1">
<asset>
<contributor>
<authoring_tool>SceneKit Collada Exporter v1.0</authoring_tool>
</contributor>
I would second the recommendation for using Assimp or AssimpKit (I’ve only used the former but the latter might be an easier starting point).
I believe the DAEs on iOS aren’t DAEs at all, they just left the suffix the same and the actual files are SceneKit archives. I’m not sure if the API to write them is exposed yet, but I think it might be now since Xcode is now willing to load DAEs and write out SceneKit archives (but it adds the “.scn” suffix, not “.dae”).
It’s possible that iOS SceneKit can just load “.scn” files — it won’t load true DAEs because the DEA-reading/writing framework was licensed from Sony and is HUGE and the iOS team just doesn’t want that giant ugly framework on its system.
Another option would be to just link the iOS app against Assimp — it can load a ton of formats natively so you could skip all the intermediate stuff. It’s not NEARLY as huge as Sony’s DAE library so it might be acceptable to ship it with your app.

Loading collada file from webserver in scenekit

I am working with SceneKit and Collada file. Now, I am able to load the collada file inside art.scnassets folder as well as in my project root directory. I am getting an error when i am trying to load the file from a local webserver. Any reason why I cannot do this?
let url = NSURL(string: "http://localhost:8888/new.dae")
let scn = try! SCNScene(URL: url!, options: nil)
2016-07-31 17:41:29.537 biOS[3863:254446] SceneKit IO: error, COLLADA files are not supported on this platform.
fatal error: 'try!' expression unexpectedly raised an error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=259 "The document "new.dae" could not be opened." UserInfo={NSURL=http://localhost:8888/new.dae, NSLocalizedDescription=The document "new.dae" could not be opened., NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=Collada is not supported by this version of SceneKit}: file /Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/swiftlang/swiftlang-703.0.18.8/src/swift/stdlib/public/core/ErrorType.swift, line 54
My goal is to read the collada file from a websever and then offer the user to download the file onto the device. I do not know why I am getting the error. By the way, I did a document preview to render the file, and it was successfully about to render document in xml. So, it is not a case of access to the file. Please help!
Any reason why I cannot do this?
Yes unfortunately.
During the build process XCode compiles your collada to .scn files. This is a scenekit specific binary file format, doing this reduces the size of the asset files (collada files are XML based) improving the load performance. SceneKit running on an iOS device does not load collada files, only .scn files.
You could look at using ModelIO to load resources that aren't part of your application, but I note collada isn't one of the supported formats.
You can also convert your dae files just like Xcode does using terminal.
Build a project with Xcode that has a dae and check the commands executed by Xcode (search for scntool)
Related: COLLADA transformations in SceneKit
I have found the AssetImportKit framework to solve this problem. The framework allows you to import Assimp supported file formats directly in SceneKit at runtime (macOS & iOS). The library supports:
Geometry Materials (with color, embedded textures and external textures)
Cameras and Skeletal animations
Serialization to .scn format

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