3D Applications with PNG Support

3D applications, from real-time VRML to high-end modeling apps to ray-tracers, are becoming increasingly popular, and textures are the usual means by which PNG images are supported.

As with the other PNG-applications pages, links to home WWW sites or to downloadable versions are provided where known, but if a link is broken, check the location and see if an updated version is available (and please tell Greg!). Relevant operating systems are printed in (parenthesized italics).

These are listed alphabetically, more or less:

• 3D Studio MAX [Kinetix / Autodesk] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.1 and later; read/write. (This is a 3D modeler/animator.)

• CC3D / CCpro - see the VRML browsers page

• Cosmo Player - see the VRML browsers page

• Cosmo Worlds [Cosmo Software / Platinum] (Irix/X, Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write. (This is a high-end VRML 2.0 modeler. Version 1.1 for Irix and version 2.0 for Win32 are reported to support PNG textures perfectly. Note that SGI retained the rights to the Irix version; if and when they create a web page for it, Greg will add a link here.)

• Extreme3D [Macromedia] (Windows 9x/NT, Macintosh) - version 2.0 and later; read/write(?) for textures and backgrounds; write-only for rendered scenes (with interlacing and alpha support). (This is a 3D modeler/editor. Version 2.0 is part of FreeHand Graphics Studio on the image editors page.)

• Font F/X [DCSi / Electric Rain] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 1.1 and later; write-only. (This is a 3D font-rendering program that can export to various image formats.)

• FreeWRL - see the VRML browsers page

• gforge [John Beale] (Unix, DOS) - version 1.1f and later; write-only. (This is a fractal terrain/surface generator that uses ``random fractal forgery'' a la Richard F. Voss; its output can be used in POV-Ray scenes. Xforge is the tcl/tk version.)

• LibVRML97 / Lookat - see the VRML browsers page

• LightWave 3D [NewTek] (Windows 9x/NT, Irix/X, Solaris/X, Mac PPC) - version 4.x(?) and later with James G. Jones' PNG plug-in; read/write; full (32-bit) alpha support; no gamma support; reportedly buggy on Macintosh. (This is a 3D rendering and animation program.)

• Liquid Reality - see the VRML browsers page

• Live3D - see the VRML browsers page

• Mathematica [Wolfram Research] (Unix/X, NeXTStep, Windows 9x/NT, Macintosh) - any version? with Jens-Peer Kuska's PNGBitmap package (freeware); read/write; alpha support; 16-bit support; commercial. (This is a ``fully integrated environment for technical computing.'' The PNG add-on allows Mathematica graphics elements to be saved as PNGs and PNGs to be used as textures for surfaces.)

• MathGL3d [Jens-Peer Kuska] (Windows 9x/NT, Unix/X) - version 1.1 and later; read/write; freeware. (This is an interactive viewer for Mathematica 3D elements that supports saving the rendered images as PNG. As of version 2.0, it also supports reading PNG images as textures on Mathematica objects and writing VRML 2.0 models and POV-Ray models with PNG textures.)

• MSVRML - see the VRML browsers page

• Nendo [Nichimen Graphics] (Solaris/X, Windows 9x/NT) - all versions; read/write; commercial. (This is a low-cost and reportedly excellent 3D modeling and paint tool with support for several 2D and 3D formats, including PNG and VRML 2.0.)

• pf2wrl [WareOnEarth] (Irix) - version 1.4(?) and later; write-only; freeware. (This is a command-line conversion utility for 3D files, specifically those supported by IRIS Performer. It converts all texture files [.rgb, .rgba, .int, .inta, or .bw] to PNG or JPEG format.)

• POV-Ray [POV-Ray Team] (Unix, DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, OS/2, NT) - version 3.0 and later; read/write; full alpha and gamma support; up to 16 bits per channel (i.e., 48-bit truecolor); uses libpng and zlib

• Rational Reducer [Systems in Motion] (Windows 9x/NT, Linux/X, Irix/X) - version 2.0 and later; read-only; commercial. (This is a polygon-reduction tool for VRML and other 3D formats. PNG is supported as a texture format for the models.)

• Torch - see the VRML browsers page

• trueSpace [Caligari] (Windows 9x, NT) - version 4.0 and later; read/write; commercial. (This is a 3D modeler/renderer with support for radiosity, NURBS, VRML 1.0 import and VRML 2.0 export, etc.; PNG support is apparently limited to textures and may not include alpha transparency.)

• Viscape Universal - see the VRML browsers page

• VRMLView - see the VRML browsers page

• WorldView - see the VRML browsers page

• Xara3D [Xara] (Windows 9x/NT) - version 2.0 and later; write-only? full alpha support. (This is a `slimware' app for creating 3D text images. It may support reading PNGs as textures.)

• xmLookat - see LibVRML97 / xmLookat on the VRML browsers page

Here are the other PNG-related pages at this site:

• Introduction to PNG features
• History of PNG
• News (and more history) of the PNG Development Group
• PNG Documentation
  • zlib Documentation
• PNG Source Code and Libraries
  • Application Toolkits
• PNG-supporting Applications
  • WWW and Online Browsers
  • Image Viewers
  • Image Editors
  • Image Converters
  • Miscellaneous Applications
• PNG support in VRML browsers
• PNG Images:
  • Willem's Test Suite of PNG Icons
  • Ray-traced PNG Interlacing Demo (also GIF / JPEG version)
  • Miscellaneous Images
• Links to other PNG resources
• Back to the PNG home page

Copyright © 1995-1999 Greg Roelofs.