[argyllcms] From argyllcms to 3D pdf files.

This is slightly of topic.
I have wasted some time try to put the wrl file from argyllcms into a
3d pdf file. I managed to do that, but in the end I realized that the
color support in u3d files are weak. :-(  So if anyone need nice 3d
gamut presentation in a pdf in grayscale , here is a multi platform
workflow. It should work on linux, mac and windows. Hopefully the u3
format will be updated at some time, then this can be very
interesting.

Here is a simple sample from targen. The 3d view can be rotated and
zoomed, but no color. Acrobat Reader > 7 or 8 are required. xpdf and
other does not work

http://mulebakken.net/div/3dpdf/targen.pdf  221Kb

Workflow:
-Open blender(1) import the wrl file with the vrml97 plugin(2), select
all, and export a wavefront obj file.
-open meshlab(3) open the obj file, and save as u3d (or idtf*).
Meshlab saves a u3d file and a tex file.
-the tex file from meshlab and the corresponding u3d file can be
compiled with pdflatex(4) if the movie15(5) package is present.
Command "pdflatex filename.tex"
-pdflatex output a file filename.pdf. Acrobat Reader are required to
open that one.


1. http://www.blender.org/
2. http://sourceforge.net/projects/vrml97import/
   On ubuntu linux the file vrml97_import.py are placed in
~/.blender/scripts/ and it also required me to do a "sudo apt-get
install  python-simpleparse python-simpleparse-mxtexttools"
3. http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
4 many latex version to choose from, I used my os defaults: sudo
apt-get install texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-recommended

5 http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/movie15/

* Linux note* On the precompiled ubuntu meshlab package I found was
not the u3d export plugin present. I tried only briefly to compile
meshlab from source. For me the solution was  to download u3d sample
software from http://sourceforge.net/projects/u3d/  and use the
included file IDTFConverter.exe with wine. It takes an idtf file
exported from meshlab and convert it to u3d. I don't even tried to
compile this. Another option is to install meshlab with wine, that
better since you also get a tex file. Third option is to compile
meslab with u3d support.

Regards
Lars Tore Gustavsen

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