COLLADA

COLLADA
Filename extension	.dae
Internet media type	model/vnd.collada+xml
Sony Computer Entertainment,; Khronos Group
Initial release	October 2004; 19 years ago
Latest release	1.5.0; August 2008; 15 years ago
Type of format	3D computer graphics
Extended from	XML
Standard	ISO/PAS 17506:2012
Website	khronos.org/collada

COLLADA (for 'collaborative design activity') is an interchange

3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available specification, ISO/PAS 17506.^[2]

COLLADA defines an

software applications that might otherwise store their assets in incompatible file formats. COLLADA documents that describe digital assets are XML files, usually identified with a .dae (digital asset exchange) filename extension

.

History

Originally created at

Sony Computer Entertainment by Rémi Arnaud and Mark C. Barnes,^[3] it has since become the property of the Khronos Group, a member-funded industry consortium, which now shares the copyright with Sony. The COLLADA schema and specification are freely available from the Khronos Group.^[4] The COLLADA DOM uses the SCEA Shared Source License 1.0

.

Several graphics companies collaborated with

game engines

have adopted the standard.

In March 2011, Khronos released [5] the COLLADA Conformance Test Suite (CTS). The suite allows applications that import and export COLLADA to test against a large suite of examples, ensuring that they conform properly to the specification. In July 2012, the CTS software was released on GitHub,^[6] allowing for community contributions.

ISO/PAS 17506:2012 Industrial automation systems and integration -- COLLADA digital asset schema specification for 3D visualization of industrial data was published in July 2012.^[7]

Software tools

COLLADA was originally intended as an intermediate format for transporting data from one

digital content creation

(DCC) tool to another application. Applications exist to support the usage of several DCCs, including:

3ds Max
(ColladaMax)
Adobe Photoshop
ArtiosCAD
Blender
Bryce
Carrara
Chief Architect Software
Cinema 4D (MAXON)
CityEngine
Clara.io
Daz Studio
Delphi
E-on Vue 9 xStream
FreeCAD
FormZ
Houdini
iBooks Author
LightWave 3D (v 9.5)
MakeHuman
Maya
(ColladaMaya)
MeshLab
Modo
Okino PolyTrans
OpenRAVE
Poser Pro (v 7.0)
Robot Operating System
Shade 3D (E Frontier, Mirye)
zip file containing a KML
file, a COLLADA file, and texture images

Softimage|XSI

SolidWorks
Strata 3D
Vectorworks
Visual3D Game Development Tool for Collada scene and model viewing, editing, and exporting
Wings 3D
Xcode (v 4.4+)

Game engines

Originally intended as an interchange format, many game engines now support COLLADA,^{[citation needed]} including:

Ardor3D
Blender Game Engine
C4 Engine
CryEngine 2
FireMonkey
Godot
GLGE
Irrlicht Engine
Mathematica^[8]

Panda3d

Pyrogenesis

SceneKit
Spring
Torque 3D
Turbulenz
Unigine
Unity
Visual3D Game Engine
HPL Engine 1

Applications

Some games and 3D applications have started to support COLLADA:

AnyLogic .dae files for 3d model mods
ArcGIS
ArchiCAD
Spore (2008 video game)^[9]
Autodesk InfraWorks
BricsCAD
Chief Architect Software supports import and export .dae files.
Google Earth (v 4) – users can simply drag and drop a COLLADA file on top of the virtual Earth
JanusVR
Kerbal Space Program - .dae files for 3d model mods.
Maple (software) - 3D plots can be exported as COLLADA
Open Wonderland
OpenSimulator^[10]
Mac OS X 10.6+'s
Preview
NASA World Wind
Second Life^[11]
SketchUp - import .dae files.
Systems Tool Kit (STK) - utilizes .dae files for 3d models
TNTmips
Tower Unite^[12]
Microstation
BeamNG.drive - mods are modeled using .dae files

Physics

As of version 1.4, physics support was added to the COLLADA standard. The goal is to allow content creators to define various physical attributes in visual scenes. For example, one can define surface material properties such as friction. Furthermore, content creators can define the physical attributes for the objects in the scene. This is done by defining the rigid bodies that should be linked to the visual representations. More features include support for ragdolls, collision volumes, physical constraints between physical objects, and global physical properties such as gravitation.

Physics middleware products that support this standard include Bullet Physics Library, Open Dynamics Engine, PAL and NVIDIA's PhysX. These products support by reading the abstract found in the COLLADA file and transferring it into a form that the middleware can support and represent in a physical simulation. This also enables different middleware and tools to exchange physics data in a standardized manner.

The

Tokamak physics engine and True Axis. PAL

also provides support for COLLADA to physics engines that also feature a native interface.