From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" Date: 2009-01-19T12:16:31+09:00 Subject: Re: If you use PDF::Writer, read this post! Gregory Brown wrote: > On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 11:52 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky > wrote: > > >> 2. New features for Prawn aka PDF::Document? The PDF format includes the >> ability to incorporate multimedia files "seamlessly" into a document. >> One extremely impressive example of this is a format called "U3D". This >> allows you to incorporate a 3D object in a PDF with very little space >> cost, and you can rotate the object, change the lighting on it, etc. >> There's a stunning example of the capabilities of this at >> >> http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/Laurana.pdf > > This wouldn't load in OS X Preview. Interesting to see this stuff > used, I saw brief mentions of this in the PDF specs, but I was sort of > expecting it was unused and unsupported across many viewers. The > former I've apparently been proven wrong on, the latter, I think might > be right. What viewers support this? As far as I can tell, only Acrobat Reader on Linux. There may be others on Windows and Macs, but I have only played with it on Linux. >> And the code to make it is at >> >> http://www.tug.org/texshowcase/Laurana_tex.zip >> >> I'm sure the tools in PDF::Document can easily get a U3D into a PDF, or >> if not, could be extended to do so easily. But what I'd really like is a >> set of Ruby libraries / classes for making the U3Ds from data! Right >> now, it looks like the main open source package for making U3Ds is >> Meshlab, which is at >> >> http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/ >> >> See also >> >> http://vcg.sourceforge.net/ > > You'd need to write an extension, but it might not be too hard. I > haven't researched it at all, honestly. You might look at the PDF > spec[0]. It'd be neat to see an extension that did this, and I'd > expose the necessary bits to make sure it was possible to do > externally, but I'm sure this wouldn't be part of core Prawn, and I > hesitate to say whether it'd be part of the 'official' project. It > seems like a better home for it might be SciRuby or something like > that. We'd of course help promote the use of the tool and help with > the Prawn specific details, but beyond that, this seems a bit > specialized for what we're trying to keep a small and simple library. > Please do look into this though, and feel free to discuss it on the > Prawn list in hopes of finding other interested parties. Actually, I do think "data -> U3D" needs a separate project. I haven't been following the "scientific computing in Ruby" projects much in the past two years, so I don't know what's "new". But I would think Prawn should definitely be able to take a U3D into a PDF. The fact that my search for "open source U3D creators" essentially dead-ends at Meshlab leads me to believe that it (or its core, VCG) is the only game in town. But it might be relatively easy to get a Ruby interface to VCG using SWIG. > > -greg > > > [0] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html > -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky I've never met a happy clam. In fact, most of them were pretty steamed.