Hey guys,
I’m working with a programmer and he wants to know how Cesium deals with loading external models.
He’s familiar with Collada, Obj & 3ds.
I told him I read you’re working towards being compatible with COLLADA.
Is there any updated news on that?
Thank you!!!
Adam,
We’re working with the COLLADA Working Group to define a new asset format for the web, glTF, which we’ll convert COLLADA to server-side. We’re hoping to have something late summer. I’m still working on cleaning up our related wiki page. I’ll send out more info when it’s ready.
Patrick
Thanks Patrick. That's important feature. I'm glad to hear someone work on that. Is there any planed time point for this feature ready?
The plan is to have significant functionality for SIGGRAPH, end of July. It’s going to be tight, but basic geometry and materials should be ready by then. Animations may be a bit later.
Patrick
Hey Patrick,
I was wondering if Collada is already supported or what the current status is?
Best,
Lucas
Hi Lucas,
COLLADA (through conversion to glTF) is in progress and is in full swing. You can pull down the gltf branch and try a few models:
http://localhost:8080/Apps/CesiumViewer2/index.html?model=Gallery/model/duck/duck.json
http://localhost:8080/Apps/CesiumViewer2/index.html?model=Gallery/model/rambler/Rambler.json
http://localhost:8080/Apps/CesiumViewer2/index.html?model=Gallery/model/wine/wine.json
Use the open-source converter to convert COLLADA to glTF. The glTF spec, converter, and our implementation are in progress so not everything is in sync and we can only provide limited support as we are heads-down developing. We expect things to stabilize in the coming months.
Patrick
Thanks for the update. I’m looking forward to seeing these features completed.
For anyone else that that wants to try these demos, after checking out you must first build the project: https://github.com/AnalyticalGraphicsInc/cesium/wiki/Contributor’s-Guide#wiki-buildthecode
I’m not sure where you want it reported, but the glTF converter isn’t working for me – when I try a new sample model in the demo after running the converter, I get an error that it can’t find “MESSENGERcompression.bin” It generated and loaded a non-compression bin file, but the compression version was never created by the tool and is listed in the json file as being 0bytes. If I try deleting that entry, I then get a JS uncaught exception “Invalid indexDataType” at Context.js:1172:19. The conversion utility warns about being built with a different libpng version than it’s running with, but otherwise completes without errors.
For reference, the Model I’m using is a COLLADA dae file exported from Blender using the NASA Messenger Model available at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/3d_resources/assets/eoss-messenger.html, alongside many other free models that might be a little more interesting than your awesome flying lego car 
Issues like these should be reported on the converter github page:
I’m pretty sure I already submitted this issue:
I think we’ll see a fix later this week.
Patrick