Hello all,
 
Some news about VTour:
 
VTour1.1 PC is out:
=============
  New VTour1.1 is downloadable on the patch and update section of the web site :  
http://vtour.realviz.com/patches/index.php
 
It's free for VTour 1.0 users, and in addition to bug fix, it adds also new exporters for Maya and Collada.
Example of export file can be downloaded from here:  
http://vtour.realviz.com/products/VT/whatsnew.php
 
Multi-env:
======
The maya export will come with a mel script that helps doing multi-project integrations into maya directly.
 
Mac:
===
Mac version of VTour1.1 is still under dev, and will be available first half of October 2006.
 
Best,
 
Stef

Hi Stef,
 
i have tried viewing the collada models in ge4 and get the shapes but no texture. models are white. sometimes if i zoom in i get entire surfaces that are green or red but not photorealitic texture. any ideas of settings in earth i should change?
Thanks
Chris Blake

Hi Stef,
its looking like the problem is the files on your website. i tried them on my home computer and same thing. no textures. I then pulled up venise file in vtour 1.1 lost the reflects and the dome and saved it as collada and when i put it in earth i could see textures. found i needed to reverse z and y. you may want to check demo files on your website.
 
Chris Blake

Hello,
 
  I tried the Antibes church and it worked in GE4 with textures, at work and at home also. Seems not to be the files.
Could you check if the examples on the Google Earth web site are working on your computer ?
We have a laptop here, that has the same problem than you, even with the examples on the google earth site.
GE4 is still Beta, so we may have to wait for compatibility with more graphics cards...
 
Thanks,
 
Stef

Hi Steff,
 
attached kmz works. I changed the name of the images folder to chateau_TX moved that folder into the models folder and then the kml brings up textured model in the correct place. i saved this as a kmz which is attached and i have tested and it works.
 
Chris

the first attachment had extra copies of images. kmz attached to this gives a better idea of how the files are organized. had to zip it as the bb does not allow .kmz . try this on your laptop

Hello Chris,
 
Thanks for your help. Don't see any attachements in your posts.
Can you retry to add them, or send them to support, please ?
 
Thanks again,
 
Stef

hi Stef,
 
i emailed a kmz of the chateau to support. i thing you should add .kmz and .kml as allowed file types to attach on a post. theres always something.
 
chris

Hello Chris,
 
  Thanks for your files. Your modification worked on one laptop, but not on another machine. There is something strange happening here...
 
Let's see the kmz contruction history (from VTour and Google Earth).
 
1) To construct the Collada files
VTour exports the Chateau.rzv project into Collada format, and generates the following files:
- Chateau.dae
- Chateau_TX folder with all textures in it  
 
In the .dae file textures are referenced to the Chateau_TX folder.
 
2) To construct the kmz file
Actually we launch GoogleEarth 4 and go to location were the "Chateau" takes place.
Then we drag and drop Chateau.dae file into GoogleEarth.
The Chateau.dae loads and appears in an arbitrary position.
We use GoogleEarth tools to place the "Chateau" with right scale and orientations.
We then save this New Placemark created as a kmz file (right click on the placemark).
 
GoogleEarth changes the folder name "Chateau_TX" to "../images" but does not change the references that are in the dae file.
 
But, in addition, it creates a new file textures.txt full of those lines:
<chateau_TX/AileD_2_TX.png> <../images/AileD_2_TX.png>
<chateau_TX/AileD_3_TX.png> <../images/AileD_3_TX.png>
.......
 
Looks like a way for GoogleEarth to remap the texture references to the new locations.
Apparently this way of referencing the texture location does not work properly on every machines.
 
To be continued ...
 
Stef

Hi Stef,
 
looks like something that needs to be fixed in ge4 to work on all machines. one interesting thing is that when downloading the file from your website in comes as .zip instead of .kmz . if you rename it to .kmz it will bring up the model on my machines but no texture. Im sure people at ge will fix this for you as its in their interest as well.
 
Chris

hi stef,
 
looks like the links are no longer working?

Hello,
 
  The link for the patches works again.
 
Best,
 
Stef