X3D files

Hello!

I am one of the coauthors of Pajek software for analysis and visualization of large networks:
https://pajek.imfm.si/
Pajek (among other formats) provides export to X3D format. See attached files: gr3_53a.x3d and gr3_53b.x3d.
However one of the Pajek users just reported that shapeways does not support the PAJEK exported x3d files.

Can you please tell me what should be changed so that X3D files exported by Pajek
would be compatible with shapeways?
Is there any place where exact format is explained.

Thans in advance.
Andrej

There is some weird 3 byte character sequence at the very beginning of the first line, before the start of the <?xml version... header.
If you remove this, the file uploads and looks sane (as far as one can tell without further background).

Thanks a lot for very fast reply.
You are right: The first three letters are BOM (Byte Order Mark) telling that the file is Unicode UTF-8.
I removed the three letters and then it is a pure ASCII file.
Attached is gr3_53c.x3d. This one should be fine.
Attached is also capture.jpg showing a snapshot of this symmetric3d graph.

Can I suppose that such files are accepted?

Thanks again.

Andrej

Ah, thought it looked vaguely familiar.
BOM is not exactly portable, and X3D is UTF8 by definition (and I just checked that the standard also requires that the file "starts with"
the <xml version... header, which would seem to expressly forbid a (redundant) BOM (or any other bytes) before it).
As far as verifying that the file without the BOM uploads correctly, you can easily do this yourself just by clicking on the "upload" button
in the top left corner and selecting the file on your local disk. After a short wait, you should see both a WebGL-based 3D preview and
a table with the object size as perceived by shapeways. (You will also see the cost stated for production in the various materials, and
also whether the object is fit for printing - in particular, there are material-specific minimum requirements for the diameter of the cylindrical
connecting "wires" in your model.)

I was able to open the file in Meshlab (www.meshlab.org) and then export it as a STL file.
Unless your units are inches, then your "wires" are very small.. the item must be nearly 15 times bigger just to be able to printable.

Thank you mikroeker and stonysmith!

As suggested I uploaded some of X3D files generated by Pajek (with BOM removed) and all of them were processed without problems:
Indeed, inches as units work fine.

I will make a necessary change in Pajek so that in next version (4.02) X3D files will be compatible with shapeways (and Meshlab).

Thanks for fast and exact responses.

Best make the cylinder diameter configurable, if this is not already the case - the only widely available multicolor material - what shapeways calls "Full Color Sandstone" is a very fragile material during production, and hence requires at least 3 millimeter diameter, for your models probably even more. Scaling the entire model up until the interconnects are sufficiently thick may be less desirable than fattish cylinders.

Thanks for suggestions.
Yes, sizes, widths, colors etc. are configurable - they can be set inside Pajek before generating X3D files.

See another example (molecula 1crn):

https://outlook.fdv.uni-lj.si/owa/redir.aspx?C=PgV0W9l5V0yh7 -ZSj-BvlGIgG0-fDdIISCVmsK8y2CB4al21N-8KY3ePmYG2wehyHtS2KQ7Cm ig.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.shapeways.com%2fmodel%2fupload- and-buy%2f3070869%3fetId%3d28661250%26utm_source%3dautomated -contact%26utm_medium%3demail%26utm_campaign%3dmodel-process ing-success%26utm_content%3d1%26ca%3demail%26ct%3dmodel-proc essing-success%26cr%3d1

Thanks.
Andrej