File format specification for .f3d?

[Anonymous]

I'm looking to (bulk) open then process/analyse model + assembly data from .f3d files (using Python).

Looking at a random .f3d file, it's a simple zip file as a container.  So, renaming it to .zip allows for it to be extracted.  This shows a tree structure of folders with files of various extensions:

• .dat
• .irondoc
• .messagelog (text format error log.  Seems unusual to be here.)
• .png (known file format)
• .protein
• .smb
• .smbh
• .toolpath (binary file of some sort. maybe compressed... didn't investigate)
• .tsm  (TSplines?)

Does anyone know of a specification for these .f3d internal file formats?

Even better would be a Python library already existing that I can just call to open and process them with. 🙂

[charegb]

Hi @Anonymous,

What are you trying to accomplish here? Maybe I can suggest a better way to do this in the API.

Thanks,

Bankim

[Anonymous]

I'm wanting to read the model + any assembly data (and possibly "Appearance" materials) from .f3d files, so they can be displayed in a selection list on a web page for a collaboration website.  (Kind of like GrabCAD, but for a different audience / different workflow)

Does that help? 🙂

[charegb · Accepted solution]

All of this information is available via the API. You could write an addin that opens all the designs in a project and writes out the assembly structure and apperance data to any format you like.

I'd recommend sticking to the API because the file format is closed and constantly evolving.

Thanks,

Bankim

[Anonymous]

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@charegb wrote:

I'd recommend sticking to the API because the file format is closed and constantly evolving.

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Thanks Bankim.  I'd kind of expected that... it's pretty common for that to be the case while a program is rapidly evolving, before there's a strong internal use case for versioning the file format.

The API approach may be workable.  It sounds non-optimal for now, but one way to find out. 😉

[Anonymous]

@charegb Hi would it be possible to extract Bezier patches out of the tsm files, created in the sculpt mode, using API? Alternatively, I could write a script to do the above task if I first find out how to understand the sections in the tsm files. Could you recommend a source to understand more about tsm files format? Thanks, Hadi