Save annotations to XML

Capturing the output from a Design Review session with Visionary Render enables the insights and changes to be incorporated into external workflows.

Using LUA scripts a Visionary Render Platform developer can write code to save annotation and markup data from their scene into an external file.

This code sample scans the tree for annotation related nodes and writes them to an XML file using a simple schema. The images of the viewpoint are also saved and referenced from the XML.

local id = 1
 
function VisitAnnotionNodes(node)   
  local t = vrNodeGetMetaNode(node)
   
  if t == "Annotation" then
    io.write("<annotation name=\"" .. node:getName() .. "\" author=\"" .. node.CreatedBy .. "\">\n")
    node:forEachChild(VisitAnnotionNodes)
    io.write("</annotation>\n")
    return
  end
   
  if t == "AnnotationComment" then
    io.write("<comment author=\"" .. node.CreatedBy .. "\">\n") 
    io.write(node.Comment)
    io.write("\n")
    io.write("</comment>\n")
    return
  end
   
  if t == "Viewpoint" then
    local pos, rot, scale = vrNodeDecomposeTransform(node)
    io.write("<viewpoint position=\"" .. tostring(pos) .. "\" rotation = \"" .. tostring(rot) .. "\">\n")
    local tex = node:sibling("Texture")
    if tex then
      local filename = "t:\\tmp\\viewpoint-" .. id .. ".png"
      id = id + 1
      io.write("<texture filename=\"" .. filename .. "\">\n")
      vrExtractBinaryAssets(tex, filename, true, vrNodeGetMetaNode(tex, true))
      io.write("</texture>\n")     
    end
    io.write("</viewpoint>\n")
  end
   
  node:forEachChild(VisitAnnotionNodes)
end
 
function SaveAnnotations(filename)
  local s = vrScenesNode():find("Annotations")
   
  if not s then
    print("Scenes/Annotations not found")
    return
  end
   
  local fd = io.open(filename, "w")
  if not fd then
    print("Failed to open " .. filename)
    return
  end
   
  io.output(fd)
  io.write("<annotations exported=\"" .. os.date() .. "\">\n")
  VisitAnnotionNodes(s)
  io.write("</annotations>\n")
  io.close(fd)
end
 
local filename = "t://tmp//annotations.xml";
SaveAnnotations(filename)

Example output from the script is this:

<annotations exported="Mon Jun 10 10:03:55 2019">
  <annotation name="Cube" author="Barry King">
    <viewpoint position="-38.191717, 28.456570, -64.153620" rotation = "0.000000, 269.624903, 0.000000">
      <texture />
    </viewpoint>
    <comment author="Barry King">
      This is some comment text.
      It may be on multiple lines.
      (Use Shift+Enter to insert a newline)
    </comment>
  </annotation>
  <annotation name="Cube" author="Barry King">
    <viewpoint position="-38.191717, 28.456570, -64.153620" rotation = "0.000000, 269.624903, 0.000000">
      <texture />
    </viewpoint>
    <comment author="Barry King">
      stuff
    </comment>
    <comment author="Barry King">
      more stuff
    </comment>
  </annotation>
  <annotation name="Cube" author="Barry King">
    <viewpoint position="-38.191717, 28.456570, -64.153620" rotation = "0.000000, 269.624903, 0.000000">
      <texture />
    </viewpoint>
    <comment author="Barry King">
      well snap
    </comment>
  </annotation>
</annotations>