While AppleInsider has heard earlier mention of Scene Kit, a developer familiar with Lion has explained that the new framework will support the import, manipulation and rendering of three dimensional assets, handing the complex end of 3D graphics for app developers.
This makes Scene Kit similar to the Core Animation data visualization API Apple launched in 10.5 Leopard (which was based upon the Layer Kit developed for the iPhone OS to provide easy to use transitions and other motion graphic effects).
The developer noted that Scene Kit is "consistent" with the APIs of Apple's other graphical frameworks, including Image Kit and Core Animation, and does not require advanced 3D graphical programming skills.
This will reportedly make it easy for third party apps to add consistent, familiar, and easy to use 3D object manipulation and rendering to their apps.
The new Scene Kit framework imports 3D assets using COLLADA, an open, XML-based interchange file format managed by Khronos Group, the standards body behind OpenGL, OpenCL, and WebGL.
COLLADA was originally developed by Sony, with collaboration from Alias, Autodesk and Avid. It is widely used by video game engines and is the standard used by Google in SketchUp Pro 8.0 and later, as well as Google Earth 4 and later.
Lion's new Scene Kit is designed to import COLLADA 3D objects and build scenes composed by cameras, lights, and meshes, with the framework providing tools for manipulating the bounding volumes, geometry and materials used in the scene.
29 Comments
This will be cool! Hopefully they'll include it in a later iOS as well.
I wonder if it suitable to create those cool 3D building views in Google maps on Android. It would be nice if Apple could create some of the advanced features that Google maps has and deploy them for use on iOS devices.
Wonderful idea. I just hope their COLLADA importer can handle the different flavors of COLLADA out there. I've personally had a great deal of trouble using COLLADA to move assets from one 3D application to another.
Edit:
For those unfamiliar with COLLADA, it's an incredibly complicated format. The specification is over 350 pages long and it's all 100% spec, not examples or tutorials.
Mac OS X needs a CoreGraphing API for making nice graphs like Keynote and Numbers.
Some apps do it well but many produce hideous graphs.
Is it possible that this might be related to the more focused targeting of the gaming industry? Scene Kit might make it easier to develop 3D-games for iOS-devices?