Is there any news about the Forgetoolkit? - autodesk-forge

I have seen that the Forgetoolkit is no longer available via beta.autodesk.com .
I would be interested in how the Forgetoolkit will be used in the future. Is there a roadmap, will version 2.0 be released?
I would be pleased about a short statement.

The current beta host - https://developer-api-beta.autodesk.io - is still available, but I can't answer whether or when the version 2.0 will be officially released...
If you're in need of a Forge-to-Unity pipeline, I'd suggest that you look at this library: https://github.com/petrbroz/forge-convert-utils. It converts the proprietary Forge file format to glTF which can then be loaded into Unity, Unreal Engine, as well as other platforms.

Related

VR AR Toolkit for Forge

One small question,
VR/AR tool kit is mainly developed for Unity.
Please give me some updates on Unreal Engine.
Does VR/AR toolkit also work for Unreal? If not then when we can expect its' arrival.
Thanks!
Yes, the AR/VR toolkit server requires a Unity plugin counterpart to parse the server responses, and at the moment there is no official plan to support Unreal Engine.
However, we provide an alternative solution for bringing Forge models to different platforms and environments: https://github.com/petrbroz/forge-convert-utils. This Node.js library/CLI tool converts Forge models into the glTF format which can then be loaded into Unity, Unreal Engine, and other targets as well.

XMIDI file format

I am going to write a converter from Miles Sound System Extended MIDI to standard MIDI file, but I am unable to find any good documentation on this format. There is a DOS converter at http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/xmi2mid/, but it is useless on 64-bit platforms and there aren't any sources of this program. There is also John Miles' website http://www.ke5fx.com/ where older AIL Version 2 is, but my C and assembly language capabilities aren't good enough to understand it. I have found a converter in Java at http://de.glibly.de/?site=software&lang=eng, but it has strange tempo issues and I haven't found a way to fix it yet. Could you point me to some documentation or a working converter with sources, preferably in C#?
The only completely working converter I've found so far is the in_midi.dll plugin of WinAmp.

What Google Maps API version is used by default?

What version of the Google Maps API is used if you don't specify a version number? The latest release version perhaps? The documentation about versioning doesn't say.
The documentation does recommend that production apps specify a minor version number. But it also says "all API changes will be backwards-compatible," so is there any reason I should specify a version number if I'm not using any experimental features?
English is not my first language, so I might be reading this part wrong (from the versioning doc you linked)
You can indicate which version of the API to load within your application by specifying it using the v parameter ... The nightly (development) version, specified with v=3 or by omitting the v parameter.
Further down, there's a mention of 3.9 being nightly.
Documentation of Versions
Version 3.9 Reference (Nightly)
So, sounds like leaving out the v (which I do) will load the nightly, version 3.9.
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false"></script>
About part two of your question: I can think of a very good reason to specify a version:
Consistency, predictability, reliability
You might want to keep the same look-and-feel while working on a update for the latest release of the Maps API. For example, the labels or map controls may move around.
On the other hand, it's good to keep track of the latest versions, too. By lagging too far behind your application might stop working when it becomes unsupported.
I'm sure there are better reasons. I'm not a professional Maps developer.
I've been building extensive Google Maps based applications and according to my experience it's better to specify API version for a long term projects. For example an issue I was facing recently:
The system was built and tested along with v3.6 but Google released an experimental version
Which is loaded by default but from the other hand not recommended for business or professional development.
Therefore to avoid some malfunction that appeared suddenly I had to specify API version:
<script src="http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false&v=3.16" type="text/javascript"></script>
Then after that everything came back to normal. You may quickly consult API version by typing in the browser console google.maps.version.
I hope someone may find it useful.

Will Dart scripts run natively in the browser?

The Dart language looks like a very nice technology to build web applications for the web. For me it seems that there are no browsers available (yet?) which can run Dart scripts natively. Although there's a description on Dart's site about how to embed such scripts into HTML. I understand that for now i have to "compile" Dart scripts to Javascript. But will this change in the future or the language is designed to be translated to other script standards similar to Haxe?
This is speculation, but I guess that Chrome will likely support dart natively in the future. It will mean that Chrome will be able to outperform other browsers that don't have the native support.
Update: There's a hint from The Official Google Code Blog that it might be coming:
The Dart VM is not currently integrated in Chrome but we plan to explore this option.
Update 2: It looks like I was right! Here's some recent news:
Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, Google is releasing Dartium, a Chromium build with native Dart support.
It’s more than likely that Dartium is part of a series of steps that Google will be taking to launch native support in Chrome — greatly improving the usefulness of Dart. Bringing native support into other browsers like Firefox and IE, on the other hand, will be quite the challenge.
Update 3: Since I posted this answer, Microsoft have released TypeScript which is a competing technology. I'd say it's unlikely that Microsoft have any intention of integrating Dart into Internet Explorer as they would probably prefer people to use TypeScript rather than Dart.
The official answer is Yes, Dart will run natively in Chrome. The branch of Chrome, affectionately called Dartium, is now available as source, and binaries will be released soon. More information on how to get and build the source: http://code.google.com/p/dart/wiki/BuildingDartium
As of March 25 of 2015, the offical answer is: no.
Source: Dart for the Entire Web
Google dropped the integration plan of the Dart VM into Chrome in favor of optimizing the Javascript compilation. Dartium is still accessible for development purposes.
Eventually, yes. The proposed MIME type + usage looks like this:
<script type="application/dart">
main() {
Element element = document.getElementById('message');
element.innerHTML = 'Hello from Dart';
}
</script>
(That example looks like JavaScript, but don't be fooled!)

Framework for Mapserver GIS APP

I'm trying to display on the web (read as create a GIS Web app) topo data layers stored in a POSTGIS/POSTGRES spatial database using mapserver. My problem is, although i happened to come across different gis frameworks that I could use, my lack of experience on using mapserver in the first place makes me indecisive of which framework to use. So what is the easiest framework out there to use? I'm using a MS4W pre-packaged mapserver binaries, and i've installed almost all of the additional packages (frameworks) from their site.
Thanks for the help!:) I
Mapfish (I think python and C based and ideal with mapserver)
GeoServer (java based)
Featureserver (RESTful, light and effective)
Other interesting links:
GEOEXT provides an excellent extension for openlayers
Boston GIS provides excellent tutorials so does Paul Ramsey and Chris Schmidt
The mother GIS - Free Open Source Software OSGEO
FreeGIS - Continually updated list of free and related GIS software
I've used Geoserver and Feature server on multiple occasions, and never got deep into mapserver. I know that Mapserver has a big community and they love helping out, check them out on IRC and their mailing list.
We have developed an interface called OWGIS for displaying GIS data.
Website: http://www.owgis.org
Description:
The OWGIS (Open WebGIS) is an OpenSource Java Servlets web application that creates WebGIS sites by automatically writing HTML and JavaScript code. The WebGIS sites are configured by XML files that define which layers will be displayed on the maps as well as the texts to be used on the interface. OWGIS's most notable features include animations, veritcal profiles and vertical transects, various color palettes, dynamic maps, downloadable data, and multilingual interfaces. All these features are created automatically without any additional web programming.
Since you already got MS4W installed. The easiest way to publish a map service from Postgres is from MapServer which is component of the ms4w.
To start publish wms from MapServer,
1) Read thru the documentation of Mapfile which is the service definition file of how the WMS configured.
2) Read the ogr postgis connection documentation. You would be able to write the database connection follow the instruction pretty easily.
3) Once you got the valid Mapfile with correct postgis connection string info, you are able to publish the WMS for your topos.
MapServer is very powerful and easy to use. The file based service provide a lot of flexibility which is critical when you need publish something dynamically.
GeoServer is very popular too and has a gui which is extremely easy to use, by several click and your services are ready to go.
Other solutions are also available as well. But consider the community user base and tech support. I would recommend using MapServer or Geoserver for your case. We had our Mapserver holding USGS topo services as well, which is very stable,flexible and salable so just some FYI.
Hope it is helpful.