Development

The development of OpenCTM has just started!

The first line of the technology, v1.x, is intended to get it into the open, and hopefully get a growing user base so that it can be useful to as many people as possible.

...but much more remains to be done.

File format and API

There are several new features planned for the future versions of the OpenCTM file format and software library, including:

• Support for key frame animations.
• New and improved compression algorithms.
• In memory decompression (save time and memory when loading files).

The OpenCTM 2.x Roadmap is a working document for drafting ideas for the next generation of OpenCTM.

Software and platform integration

Obviously, for OpenCTM to be really useful, it needs to be supported by as many softwares as possible. Work has already begun (e.g. the OpenCTM conversion tool and the Blender plugins), but more can be done. Here are a few ideas:

• Port the OpenCTM API to new platforms (e.g. Java).
• Add support for OpenCTM in popular open source game engines (e.g. Irrlicht and OGRE).
• Create OpenCTM plugins for popular modeling tools (e.g. 3ds Max).
• Browser integration - e.g. extend Firefox/WebKit with a mesh-class that can be used in conjunction with the upcoming WebGL standard in order to load compressed OpenCTM files quickly over the web.