| Q&A |
 Ron
Fritz
Managing Partner
Tech Soft America
22-April-2005 |
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"First,
it's free. Second, it's highly compressed and stream capable
- so it is a very efficient format. Third, the geometry and
attributes supported within HSF make it very highly tailored
toward representing engineering data. Fourth, OpenHSF is published,
so companies can know that their data will always remain accessible
to them." |
| Q1 |
A
brief presentation of Tech Soft America and OpenHSF ("Open
HOOPS Stream Files"). |
| A1 |
Tech
Soft America (TSA) provides graphics development toolkits to
software developers. Our primary focus is on companies creating
engineering software. TSA's flagship product is the HOOPS 3D
Application Framework, which serves as the graphics engine and
core foundation for over 175 products from companies large and
small - including leaders such as Autodesk, SolidWorks, PTC,
Dassault Systemes, MSC.Software, Fluent, Landmark Graphics and
others.
OpenHSF is an independent organization that was launched by
TSA, Spatial, Dassault Systemes and several others . We saw
a market need for an open (meaning published) file format that
was efficient enough for web visualization and rapid transport
over networks. The market also needed a format that was geared
toward the needs of engineering software. Our format, HSF, was
geared toward engineering. It was also not critical to our business
to keep it proprietary, so we published the specification to
make it open. We were trying to donate some of our technology
to solve an industry problem and to grow the overall use of
3D.
HSF is essentially a representation of our HOOPS scene-graph
database in a compressed, stream-capable form. TSA simply decided
to publish this format, make it free to read/write and help
bring together a community of interested parties to work on
useful extensions to the format. That community is called the
OpenHSF Membership.
Interestingly, the biggest way that HSF has helped the industry
is by helping companies build upon HSF and create their own
file formats which contain more than just the visualization
information. Examples of this include 3D DWF from Autodesk and
eDrawings from SolidWorks. |
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| Q2 |
How
can a CAD users generate an OpenHSF presentation? Which CAD
software is compatible with OpenHSF? |
| A2 |
If
the CAD user has one of the software applications which can
export OpenHSF files they can create OpenHSF files. The leading
ones are CATIA v5, SolidWorks and KeyCreator (formerly CADKEY).
There are also companies such as Transmagic and Okino Graphics
which have product which can translate many popular 3D formats
into OpenHSF. Although this isn't a perfect tracking of applications
that can read/write OpenHSF (since some come on line that we
aren't aware of) a list of applications with OpenHSF support
can be found here:
http://www.openhsf.org/inaction/applications.htm |
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| Q3 |
What
are the benefits of using OpenHSF for visualisation? |
| A3 |
First,
it's free. Second, it's highly compressed and stream capable
- so it is a very efficient format. Third, the geometry and
attributes supported within HSF make it very highly tailored
toward representing engineering data. Fourth, OpenHSF is published,
so companies can know that their data will always remain accessible
to them. |
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| Q4 |
Is
it possible to display simulation results or 2D technichal drawings
on HSF files? |
| A4 |
Yes,
HSF can handle both of these cases. CFDRC exports their CFD
simulation results with full animations and I believe other
CAE companies do as well. eDrawings from Solidworks is a format
based on HSF which shows how well HSF can handle 2D drawings.
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| Q5 |
What
are the features of OpenHSF 3D engine? Does it support texture
mapping? |
| A5 |
That's
a big question since the HOOPS API has over 750 functions and
has been developed over 18 years! The HOOPS 3D Application Framework
is an extremely rich API that is used as the core graphics engine
within some 175 applications. These HOOPS-based applications
range from lightweight viewers such as Autodesk's DWF viewer
all of the way through to heavyweight CAD and CAE packages from
companies like PTC, MSC and Fluent - and cover every type of
engineering application in between. Yes, the HOOPS framework
does support texture mapping and anything else an engineering
application would need to handle - from high-end capabilities
like shadows and environment mapping to "low level"
2D functionality for detailed marker symbols, font handling,
hardcopy output, etc. They summary is that the HOOPS Application
Framework has a very complete set of functionality specifically
built for the development of engineering applications. |
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| Q6 |
Are
OpenHSF files enough optimized for web publishing and collaborative
work? |
| A6 |
Yes,
this is one of the key strengths of OpenHSF. You can see some
sample web published files here:
http://www.hoops3d.com/gallery/index.html |
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| Q7 |
Is
OpenHSF an Open Source file format? Is it an industrial standard?
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| A7 |
The
core of the OpenHSF is the HSF format from TSA which TSA simply
published the specification for. We also provide the source
code to our HOOPS Stream Toolkit, which is the SDK for reading/writing
and compressing HSF data. The extensions to the format are created
and then ratified by committees of OpenHSF members. So, no it's
not really open source - it's more openly shared. It's open
in the sense that the HSF format description is published, any
interested parties can join for free, the SDK is free and that
the OpenHSF community can freely create extensions. At this
point OpenHSF is not an industry in that it is not part of any
standards body, though we would welcome that track if the OpenHSF
Membership wanted to pursue this. |
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| Q8 |
Is
it possible to create interactive 3D applications (for training,
product configuration...) with OpenHSF? |
| A8 |
Yes,
OpenHSF can represent any of the graphical elements needed for
these use cases and has a full description for including animations.
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| Q9 |
What
is the position of TSA concerning X3D and U3D formats? |
| A9 |
It's
difficult to say exactly since both X3D and U3D are very new.
In general, TSA would like to see some common format emerge
- this is what we were trying to accomplish with OpenHSF - give
the market a common open format they could converge upon. Now
there seem to be even more formats then when we offered OpenHSF
to the community.
The market asked us to open HSF to give them a more compressed
and engineering-centric option since VRML was not efficient
enough nor was it sufficiently geared toward the needs of engineering.
The Web3D folks set out to provide this next generation of VRML
with X3D. Ultimately the market will determine whether they've
succeeded.
U3D in general appears to be more focused much further downstream
the engineering supply chain. OpenHSF tends to be used further
up that chain, closer to engineering departments than to end
users. |
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| Q10 |
OpenHSF
is compatible with Microsoft ActiveX technology (Internet Explorer
and MS Office). Will it be also compatible with Adobe Reader
(PDF) and FireFox? |
| A10 |
The
OpenHSF format itself is independent of these containers. Also,
the SDK is provided in source code form so can be compiled on
different formats. You are correct, though, that the "default
player" for OpenHSF files is the HOOPS Stream Control -
which TSA has created as an ActiveX control. Right now there
are no plans to port this to the Acrobat platform or have it
run within Firefox but it's certainly possible that this could
be added in the future. |
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