Other 3D Applications

Quite a few other 3D applications support PNG, too. These range from VRML editors and high-end modeling programs to artificial terrain generators and font-extrusion utilities. In the next few pages, I list a number of these applications, together with the version number of the latest release and the current web site as of this writing.

3D Studio MAX

Version R2.5, Kinetix/Autodesk. Available for 32-bit Windows; read/write support for PNGs. This is the reference software for high-end 3D modeling, much like Adobe Photoshop is the reference for high-end image editing; release 2.0 (and later) supports export of VRML 2.0.

http://www.ktx.com/3dsmax/
http://www.ktx.com/3dsmaxr2/

Cosmo Worlds

Version 1.1 (IRIX) and 2.0 (Win32), SGI Cosmo Software, Platinum Technology, Computer Associates, and/or Web3D Consortium. Available for SGI IRIX and 32-bit Windows; read/write support for PNGs; full alpha support. This was Cosmo's flagship VRML 2.0 editing program. SGI retained the rights to the IRIX version; as of early April 1999, the fate of the Windows version was up in the air. Platinum's plans to release it to the Web3D Consortium (as open source code, free for noncommercial use) may go forward, or it may remain proprietary software under Computer Associates' control.

http://www.cosmosoftware.com/products/worlds/brief.html
http://www.sgi.com/software/cosmo/worlds.html
http://www.web3d.org/

Extreme3D

Version 2.0, Macromedia. Available for 32-bit Windows and Mac PPC; read/write support for PNGs as textures and backgrounds; write-only support for PNGs as output format for rendered scenes, including interlacing and (32-bit) alpha support. This is a 3D modeling and animation tool.

http://www.macromedia.com/software/extreme3d/

Font F/X

Version 2.0, DCSi/Electric Rain. Available for 32-bit Windows; write-only support for PNGs. This is a 3D font-rendering program.

http://www.erain.com/

gforge

Version 1.3a, John Beale. Available for Unix and DOS; write-only support for PNGs. This is a terrain generator that uses ``random fractal forgery'' to produce realistic mathematical representations of hills, mountains, and craters; its output must be fed into the POV-Ray ray tracer for rendering. The included Tcl/Tk interface is called Xforge.

http://www.best.com/~beale/gforge/

LightWave 3D

Version 5.6, NewTek. Available for 32-bit Windows, Mac PPC, IRIX, and Solaris. Read/write support for PNGs and full (32-bit) alpha support if James G. Jones's PNG loader/saver is installed as a plug-in. This is another 3D modeling and animation tool, with particular emphasis on film and video output.

http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/description.html
http://datausa.com/pixelsys/plugins.htm

Mathematica

Version 3.0.2, Wolfram Research. Available for 32-bit Windows, Mac 68k/PPC, and most flavors of Unix; version 2.2.3 is also available for 16-bit Windows, OS/2, and OpenVMS. Read/write support for PNGs, read-only support for 32-bit RGBA, and full 16-bit support if Jens-Peer Kuska's PNGBitmap package is installed. Mathematica is a graphical environment for interactive mathematics and technical computing; the add-on allows it to use PNGs for textures on surfaces and to save rendered output and other graphics elements in PNG format.

http://www.wri.com/mathematica/
http://www.mpae.gwdg.de/~kuska/mcpng.html

MathGL3d

Version 2.0, Jens-Peer Kuska. Available for 32-bit Windows, Linux, and Solaris; read/write support for PNGs. This is a standalone, interactive viewer for Mathematica 3D elements; it supports PNGs as textures on input and as an output format for rendered images. It can also produce POV-Ray or VRML 2.0 models with PNG textures.

http://www.mpae.gwdg.de/~kuska/mview3d.html

Nendo

Nichimen Graphics. Available for 32-bit Windows and Solaris; read/write support for PNGs. This is a 3D modeling and 2D painting application with support for PNGs as textures and VRML 2.0 as both an input and output format. PNG images can be edited in the paint portion of the program.

http://www.nichimen.com/nendo/

pf2wrl

Version 1.4, WareOnEarth. Available for SGI IRIX; write-only support for PNGs. This is a simple (and free) command-line utility to convert IRIS Performer 3D files into VRML 2.0 format; it will optionally convert the SGI-specific texture formats into PNG and JPEG.

http://www.wareonearth.com/freesoft.html

POV-Ray

Version 3.1a, Persistence of Vision Development Team. Available for 16- and 32-bit Windows, Unix, Mac 68k/PPC, DOS, and Amiga; read/write support for PNGs; full (32-bit) alpha support; full gamma support; full 16-bit-per-sample support. This is probably the most well known ray-tracing program; its file format has become an unofficial 3D standard.

http://www.povray.org/

Rational Reducer

Version 2.2, Systems in Motion. Available for 32-bit Windows, Linux, and SGI IRIX; read-only support for PNGs. This is a polygon-reduction tool for 3D models in VRML 1.0, VRML 2.0, AutoCAD (DXF), and 3D Studio MAX (3DS) formats. It supports PNGs for textures.

http://www.sim.no/reducer.html

trueSpace

Version 4.1, Caligari. Available for 32-bit Windows; read/write support for PNGs. This is a 3D modeling and rendering program with support for radiosity, NURBS, and so on. It supports PNGs for textures and can write VRML 2.0 files.

http://www.caligari.com/products/

Xara3D

Version 3.0, Xara. Available for 32-bit Windows; write support for PNGs (may also support reading PNGs as textures); full (32-bit) alpha support. This is a 3D font-rendering program.

http://www.xara.com/xara3d/

One other application is worth mentioning here. VermelGen, an all-Java VRML editor written by Justin Couch and Cameron Gillies, relies on Java's built-in image-handling support for textures. The most recent version of the app, beta 2, was released in mid-1997 when Java did not support PNG. But with native PNG support in the new Java Advanced Imaging API and in Justin's own Java Image Content Handlers (see Cross-Platform Libraries), it is possible that VermelGen will inherit PNG support as well. (Of course, it's also quite possible that some modifications would have to be made in order to work with the updated Java code.) VermelGen is available from http://www.vlc.com.au/VermelGen/; it requires the JVerge VRML classes, available from http://www.vlc.com.au/JVerge/.

As with the other application categories, new VRML browsers and 3D applications with PNG support will be listed on the following two pages at the PNG home site:

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngvrml.html
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngap3d.html