Seamless3d is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

3D modeling software In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions via specialized software by manipulating edges, vertices, an ...

available under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...

. The models for the virtual reality world Techuelife Island were created using Seamless3d technology. Techuelife Island is showcased by

Blaxxun Blaxxun Interactive, originally named "Black Sun Interactive", was one of the first companies to develop a 3D community platform designed for the Internet using VRML and highly scalable multi-user server environments. Company history Blaxxun wa ...

as an example of what is possible when using the interactive multi-user Blaxxun platform. Many Seamless3d tutorials have been translated to French.

History

In 2001 Seamless3d was made freely available online as a

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

library. The library centered on the creation of

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

single mesh

avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

s for the Blaxxun 3d multi-user platform. It allowed the user to create smooth shaped

triangle mesh In computer graphics, a triangle mesh is a type of polygon mesh. It comprises a set of triangles (typically in three dimensions) that are connected by their common edges or vertices. Many graphics software packages and hardware devices can ...

es and join different meshes together with tangent matching surfaces at the joining edges using a C++ compiler. By February 2003 Seamless3d had been transformed into a GUI based 3d modelling application with a file format designed around

VRML VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, pronounced ''vermal'' or by its initials, originally—before 1995—known as the Virtual Reality Markup Language) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphi ...

format. This allowed Seamless3d files to be edited using VrmlPad utilising its syntax checking. In 2005 a script compiler was developed and in May 2006 Seamless3d was able to act as a web browser for seamless3d files containing complex scripted animations. In 2006 a set of specialised nodes for creating simple shapes such as:

Sphere A sphere () is a Geometry, geometrical object that is a solid geometry, three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...

Cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

Cone A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines con ...

Torus In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle. If the axis of revolution does not tou ...

, Box and Bézier Lathe were added to make Seamless3d easier for the novice to quickly make simple models. In 2007 the animation interface was greatly simplified by the introduction of a specialised control panel called the Anim bar. Towards the end of 2007

NURBS Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and surfaces. It offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analyt ...

were introduced for making shapes and for synthesizing sounds. In 2010 NURBS control point animation, NURBS stitching and a number of other features to aid making movies were introduced.

Build Node Technology

Seamless3d can be used as a mesh editor and an animator, however its key feature is its build node technology. Build nodes allow the user to perform a sequence of complex operations in real time whenever a control point in the 3d window is dragged.

NURBS Surface Poly Editing (NSPE)

NSPE allows the user to hand edit the polygons on NURBS surfaces. This includes being able to drag the vertices anywhere along the NURBS surface as well as join the vertices together, break the vertices apart and color them. NSPE has a significant advantage over simply converting a NURBS surface to a

polygon mesh In 3D computer graphics and solid modeling, a polygon mesh is a collection of , s and s that defines the shape of a polyhedral object. The faces usually consist of triangles (triangle mesh), quadrilaterals (quads), or other simple convex polyg ...

for editing because NSPE lets the user be able continue to modify the NURBS surface for the hand edited polygon structure. Because NSPE ensures that when a polygon's vertex is dragged it will always be on the NURBS surface, NSPE greatly helps the user to avoid unintentionally changing the shape of the model when optimizing for real time animation.

Fusing NURBS Surfaces

By including a FuseSurface feature designed for fusing 2 NURBS surfaces together, Seamless3d allows for the creation of smooth continuous curvy models made from multiple NURBS surfaces.

SeamlessScript

Seamless3d has its own built in script compiler which compiles SeamlessScript (a very fast light weight scripting language) into native machine code. SeamlessScript is designed to look and feel a lot like JavaScript while being able to be compiled by a standard C++ compiler. This allows the user to develop complex animation sequences using a C++ IDE which gives the user access to professional debugging aids such as single step execution.

Seamless3d format

Seamless3d format (smls) is a text-based human readable format with some aspects common to VRML. The following example shows the code (containing SeamlessScript) for an animated spinning box: #SMLS V2.127 utf8 Seamless Anim

Seamless3d Chat

The Multi-User Seamless3d chat server designed for 3D World Wide Web browsing is open source under the MIT license and can be compiled for both Linux and Windows. Currently the Seamless3d modeller is used as the 3D chat client. An online Seamless3d chat server has been in continuous service since April 2009. The general public can freely use it for their own custom made worlds and avatars.

Features

* Exports to

X3D X3D is a royalty-free ISO/IEC standard for declaratively representing 3D computer graphics. File format support includes XML, ClassicVRML, Compressed Binary Encoding (CBE) and a draft JSON encoding. X3D became the successor to the Virtual Re ...

(including

H-Anim Humanoid Animation (HAnim) is an approved ISO and IEC standard for humanoid modeling and animation. HAnim defines a specification for defining interchangeable human figures so that those characters can be used across a variety of 3D games and simul ...

), OBJ and

POV-Ray The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, most commonly acronymed as POV-Ray, is a cross-platform ray-tracing program that generates images from a text-based scene description. It was originally based on DKBTrace, written by David Kirk Buck and Aaro ...

formats * Imports VRML and X3D VRML Classic formats * Imports Canal/Blaxxun Avatar Studio avatars * Imports

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* Imports and Exports

Biovision Hierarchy The Biovision Hierarchy (BVH) character animation file format was developed by Biovision, a defunct motion capture services company, to give motion capture data to customers. This format largely displaced an earlier format Biovision providing skel ...

Motion Capture Motion capture (sometimes referred as mo-cap or mocap, for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robo ...

( BVH) file

* Support for

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of vid ...

which allows for the creation of AVI, MPG, MP4 and

FLV Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are t ...

movie format

* Transform hierarchies
Morphing
* Skinned

animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

* Texture mappin

*

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

and PNG texture formats (and BMP when using

DirectX Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with "Direct", ...

) *

Béziers Béziers (; oc, Besièrs) is a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture of the Hérault Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region of Southern France. Every August Béziers hos ...

& NURBS lathes and NURBS patches
Tangent matched NURBS Surface Fusion

* Software robot demonstration help

* Key-frame based and

Script Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of handw ...

based

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*

Sound synthesis A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

using NURB

* Seamless3d files are a compact human readable Plain text, text format
Multi-User 3D chat web browsing

References

External links

*
Tutorials

Seamless3d Forum

Bumpy's 3D Model Gallery
{{3D software Free 3D graphics software 3D animation software Video game development software Windows-only free software Software using the MIT license