Hi all,
I am currently working on some applet-based online kitchen planning tool with a 3D viewing option, and have chosen jMonkeyEngine for the 3D part. I’ve already run some tests with JME in an applet, and it works just fine, loading of remote models included. However, I have only managed loading OBJ models so far, and I need to be able to load models in the VRML format. The reason for this is some other tool that has a great pool of objects I’d like/have to use and is able to export them in VRML (yes, that tool is kind of “aged”… 
).
Now, my question is: Is there currently any way to load VRML or X3D files in JME, some converter or loader class? As I was not able to find anything like that, neither here on the forums nor on the web, I was thinking of writing a loader by myself, but the moment I saw the ISO specs for X3D and VRML, that idea went straight out of the window 
(okay, I might be able to write a loader that can at least manage a subset of the features…).
Whether it is VRML or X3D that is loaded by my tool doesn’t matter - there are tools for quick conversion between the two formats linked on the Web3D.org page. If I could find some tool to efficiently convert the VRML files to a format that can be loaded by JME, this might be a suitable workaround. There are quite some 3D modeling tools able to import VRML and export OBJ/Milkshape/whatever, but given the number of models to be converted, this would take by far too long. Any ideas for a suitable conversion tool?
I would really recommend using a program like Blender to import your models, and then export them to a format jME could understand.
As I said, this is just what i wanted to avoid. Having to convert all of the models manually will take much too long…
But if there's no other way, I'll just have to swallow the bitter pill and take on writing a loader. 
Thanks anyway!
If you are using Linux, you could create a script and convert them in one big batch… using 3dto3d (a free tool) you can achieve this.
Also, if you are in Windows, you could probably install cygwin (which you probably should anyway ;)) and perhaps 3dto3d would work there too.
Thanks for the hint, that program looks kinda cool! Unfortunately though, it seems it doesn’t support VRML/X3D as an input format, according to one of the download pages I found and the packed-in readme file. 
However, the latest version I was able to find on the Web (3.5) is from 1998… Is there any newer and updated version I didn’t find?
(P.S.: I also found a windows version, so one doesn’t have to start up Linux every time only to convert model files. )
Oh my, I am sorry it does not support it… Maybe there is something you can do with blender and a scripti (since it is written in python) to bath import/export your model instead?
If not, at least you now are aware that there might be command line tools that could potentially do what you want.
In order to try this, I would have to learn Python first ^^
Ah well, I’ll just look for more conversion tools on the web… Maybe I can find one that suits my purpose. If I do find one, I’ll post the link here.
EDIT: Alright, I’ve googled for a while now and found two programs.
The first is Deep Exploration, which not only supports translation between file formats but also creating 3D scenes. But: It’s 500 bucks, so not really what I was looking for. (For those still interested, it’s available here).
The second program I found is a shareware 3D Object Converter, available here. It supports a great deal of file formats and can perform batch conversion on several files at once. According to the features list it also supports loading VRML… but only Version 1.0 - doh. Additionally, you need to register… So, again, not useful for me.
I don’t think I’ll be able to find a suitable tool any more, so I’ll just go ahead and write an X3D loader/converter for jME. Anyway, thanks for the help!
Was wondering? Any process with the VRML/X3d Model conversion? to JME?
There's an X3D loader under jME's model converters.