Plugin for importing VRML

Development
1

Hi everyone,
I am trying to implement VRML and X3D import/export in avogadro as a
beginner project, also because i need to.
I have hit a few blocks in this, mainly due to nonexistent documentation-

  1. Couldn’t build avogadro due to a problem with cmake not finding QtConfig
  • the internet seems to have many instances of it since last year but no
    solutions yet. I settled by using apt-get for install … although I have not
    idea how to compile if I decide to
  1. I want to open a ticket or locate one based on whether the feature i want
    to add has been implemented already or not. Did find any page I can edit in
    the wiki.
  2. The API doc seems to have a few examples for developing a plugin- which
    would be great - but i would really want it to be a core functionality. Do
    you think a plugin would be better for the community?

Need some help with building avogadro first! :frowning:

For those of you who think VRML can contain more information than avogadro
needs, i agree. I probably would specify a subset of VRML/X3D that avogadro
needs.

Regards,
Debanjan
TU Clausthal

2

I am trying to implement VRML and X3D import/export in avogadro as a
beginner project, also because i need to.

Export would be wonderful. How would you import VRML / X3D? What molecular data is in VMRL? Or do you want to display surfaces from VRML?

  1. Couldn’t build avogadro due to a problem with cmake not finding QtConfig

Do you have the qt development packages installed (on Ubuntu?)…

  1. I want to open a ticket or locate one based on whether the feature i want
    to add has been implemented already or not. Did find any page I can edit in
    the wiki.

No one is currently working on VRML export. Feature requests are handled through the SourceForge tracker:
http://sourceforge.net/p/avogadro/feature-requests/194/

  1. The API doc seems to have a few examples for developing a plugin- which
    would be great - but i would really want it to be a core functionality. Do
    you think a plugin would be better for the community?

Core features are plugins. Almost everything is a plugin. So you’ll want to develop an extension. I suggest looking at:
libavogadro/src/extensions/pov*

This is the POV-Ray export extension. The gl2psextension is probably also very useful.

Cheers,
-Geoff

3

On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 9:51 PM, Geoffrey Hutchison <
geoff.hutchison@gmail.com> wrote:

I am trying to implement VRML and X3D import/export in avogadro as a
beginner project, also because i need to.

Export would be wonderful. How would you import VRML / X3D? What molecular
data is in VMRL? Or do you want to display surfaces from VRML?

actually you are right about this. I decided to use VRML because one of the
functionalities that I was looking was to use surfaces to visualize
octahedrons. I have to think about this a bit more before i proceed. I am
fairly new to VRML. I have been only a user of avogadro before this.

  1. Couldn’t build avogadro due to a problem with cmake not finding
    QtConfig

Do you have the qt development packages installed (on Ubuntu?)…

Cool! that solved it, sudo apt-get install qt4-dev-tools.

  1. I want to open a ticket or locate one based on whether the feature i
    want
    to add has been implemented already or not. Did find any page I can edit
    in
    the wiki.

No one is currently working on VRML export. Feature requests are handled
through the SourceForge tracker:
Avogadro / Old Feature Requests / #194 VRML or X3D export

exactly what i was looking for!!

  1. The API doc seems to have a few examples for developing a plugin-
    which
    would be great - but i would really want it to be a core functionality.
    Do
    you think a plugin would be better for the community?

Core features are plugins. Almost everything is a plugin. So you’ll want
to develop an extension. I suggest looking at:
libavogadro/src/extensions/pov*

This is the POV-Ray export extension. The gl2psextension is probably also
very useful.

Cheers,
-Geoff

Very helpful answer … thank you so much!
-Debanjan