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##COLLADA2JSON

COLLADA2JSON introduces a JSON format that aims to bridge the gap between COLLADA and WebGL.

JSON Format

The JSON format has been designed from the ground up with an eye towards the requirements of WebGL, and is intended to be the final step in a COLLADA to WebGL workflow. COLLADA is an interchange format created to allow information to easily be passed between authoring tools, but is not well suited for use in web or embedded device applications.

The JSON format is actually a hybrid format consisting of two files:

  • A JSON document describing the scene graph and its entities.
  • A separate binary blob containing all large data arrays (indices/vertices).

To satisfy WebGL constraints, the provided tool named COLLADA2JSON performs the following transformations: (Most of these are work in progress)

  • Unify index buffers with unique indices for all vertex attributes. (Known as "deindexing")
  • Split meshes into buffers that do not exceed 65535 indices to satisfy the WebGL's maximum index size of UNSIGNED_SHORT
  • Generate default GLSL shaders from the COLLADA materials.
  • Normalize the "Up" axis of all scenes to allow easy resource sharing.

Using an external binary blob has several advantages:

  • The JSON format references the buffers as opaque typed arrays.
  • The binary format provides opportunities for better data compression.

Watch the GitHub issues tracker for updates on the status of these features.

What's provided in this repository:

  • viewer: A sample WebGL viewer (Chrome canary recommanded) that loads and displays a model asynchronously (vertex and index buffers loaded progressivly). The example model contains thousands of independant meshes and buffers (to show progressive loading).
  • converter: Source code for COLLADA2JSON converter based on OpenCOLLADA
  • loaders: Loader utilities for 3rd party WebGL libraries. Currently contains a Three.js loader, with support planned for other popular WebGL frameworks.

Workflow

COLLADA2JSON provides a reliable toolchain based on OpenCOLLADA. Starting from exporter plugins in major authoring tools to COLLADA parsing when converting to JSON, OpenCOLLADA is where all efforts to import/export COLLADA files are centralized.

Project status

The project is currently in an early state to encourage community feedback. It has been tested on OSX, but all the components involved are cross platform. Testing will be extended to all major platforms in the near future.

JSON Format description

coming soon...

Converter build instructions

coming soon...