Do 3D file formats matter?

I truly believe that 3D file formats do not really matter. It's the distribution mechanism a.k.a. PDF. I have been doing some searches on google and blogsearch.google.com using keywords for various 3D file formats and then searched on Acrobat 3D. Amazing. The results from the google search brought back u3d - 174,000, 3d xml - 189,000, xvl - 375,000 jt was impossible because of all the noise. Acrobat 3D - 1,020,000 results. Blog searching showed much the same. I find that blog searches are actually much more meaningful for current events. The blog searches really showed that file formats such as u3d were of little interest while discussions of the distrubtion mechanism was of much more interest. The next step is to track the number of searches performed on Google for specific keywords, and yes there is a legal and simple way of doing this. I believe that the results will be similar.

Greg Smith
http://www.immdesign.com

Why so much interest in U3D and Acrobat

So why is there so much interest in 3D viewing inside of a PDF file? Well from our own experiences, if a person has to download or install YAGV (yet another graphics viewer) and the company is not named Microsoft or Adobe, the software is considered spyware. Whether it's eDrawings from SolidWorks, DWF viewer from Autodesk, or JT viewer from UG, people outside of those using a CAD application have no clue where this software is coming from. If you mention 3D PDF - "Oh ok. I already look at PDF files. No problem." Is the viewer and 3D format war over? Pretty darn close.

Greg Smith
http://www.immdesign.com

Welcome To All Things Acrobat 3D

Welcome To The All Things Acrobat 3D blog.

Here we will try to keep up to date information on Acrobat 3D, U3D, 3D PDF and the applications for 3D in documentation.

Quick links:
Main Acrobat 3D page at Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/main.html

Acrobat 3D try-out
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat3d/tryout.html

Developer 3D support
http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/pdf/topic_3d.html

Acrobat 3D Forum
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.3bbe2554

U3D and 3dif
http://www.3dif.org

3D PDF document generation
Immerisve Design
http://www.immdesign.com

Right Hemisphere
http://www.righthemisphere.com

More to come.

Greg Smith
Immersive Design, Inc.
http://www.immersivedesign.com
Interactive 3D documentation for the masses

tags: Acrobat, Acrobat 3D, Acrobat3D, Adobe, PDF, 3D PDF, RightHemisphere, Right Hemisphere, Immersive Design, IPA