collada-dae-parser

Parse collada .dae file vertex positions, textures, normals and animations

View live animated model

View demo source

Notice

This package is still a work in progress (hence no major bump)

I won't need skeletal animations until around September. Commits will be few and far between until then.

But.. I'm still around. If you have a question, ideas or use cases that aren't covered open an issue!

What does it do?

collada-dae-parser parses a collada file and outputs JSON. This is useful for displaying skeletal animations in the browser.

collada-dae-parser is only concerned with giving you JSON. An animation system is outside of this modules scope.

To Install

# API
$ npm install --save collada-dae-parser
# CLI
$ npm install -g collada-dae-parser

Making use of the parser

If you're unfamiliar with skeletal animation, the demo is a good starting point. Here's where we're parsing our collada file and buffering our graphics data. We're parsing at runtime in the demo, but in a real application you'd want to parse your collada files during a build step.

# Run the demo locally. Changes to the `demo` directory will live reload in your browser
# PRs and issues are welcome!
git clone https://github.com/chinedufn/collada-dae-parser && cd collada-dae-parser && npm install && npm run demo

CLI

Output stringified JSON to stdout

# parse from stdin
cat my-3d-model.dae | dae2json > parsed-model.json

# parse from file
dae2json my-3d-modal.dae > parsed-model.json

API

parseDae(xmlFile, callback) -> object

xmlFile

Required

Type: string or Buffer

Your collada file data. Not the filename, the file contents.

callback

Required

Type: function

function (err, parsedDaeObject) {
  console.log(parsedDaeObject)
  /*
  {
    keyframes: {...},
    vertexNormalIndices: [...],
    vertexNormals: [...],
    vertexPositionIndices: [...],
    vertexPositions: [...],
    vertexUVIndices: [...],
    vertexUVs: [...]
  }
  */
}

TODO:

• src: basic cli (potentially pull into own repo, but start here)

• src: Allow file buffer to be passed in

• src: Factor in bind shape matrix

• src: Stop exporting bind shape matrix

• demo: fix normals in demo lighting

• src / demo: add a textured demo model

• src: rounding values. Currently lots of .999999 and 1.000001

• src: All of the TODO: statements in code

• demo: full screen demo with controls overlay

• demo: toggle between 2 animations

• demo: Support mobile touch events

• demo: allow zoom in, zoom out in demo

• doc: Add a GIF of every test fixture animation and demo

• doc: Documentation

• A separate package that uses collada-dae-parser to implement a stateless skeletal animation system

References

• waZim. (2010) "Step by Step Skeletal Animation in C++ and OpenGL, Using COLLADA Part 1 & Part 2"
  • Heavily informed the initial parser
• Markus Ruh. (2012) Vertex Skinning
  • Heavily informed the vertex skinning in the initial demo vertex shader
• Jerimiah van Oosten. (2011) "GPU Skinning of MD5 Models in OpenGL and Cg"
  • Heavily informed the vertex skinning in the initial demo vertex shader

See Also

• wavefront-obj-parser

License

MIT