Source Content Snapshots

PathEngine's 'source content' format encapsulate the set of information extracted from each content platform before the generic 'content processing functionality' is applied to this information.

This includes ground meshes, anchors, and pinned shapes, as well as face attributes on ground meshes.

Face/vertex meshes

Because the mesh representation most commonly used in content creation applications is the 'face/vertex' representation, i.e. a set of vertices, with positions, and then a set of faces that reference those vertices, this is the representation used for PathEngine's source content format.
The content processing functionality converts from this face/vertex representation to the essentially face/edge representation used internally.

As far as possible, the content integration plugins are designed in terms of minimal code for extracting information from content-platform specific representations into the source content format.
Once this information has been extracted calls are then made into the generic content processing functionality and the main API.
This ensures that the content processing functionality gets the maximum possible test coverage, and greatly simplifies things like testing and updates to this functionality.

Troubleshooting problems with export

When reporting problems with export, this should be done as far as possible by sending in files in the generic 'source content' format.
This provides the clearest possible snapshot of the geometry being processed, and avoid any issues with file compatibility between different content application versions, plugin dependencies, and so forth.

Source content snapshots can also be used to reported problems when working with custom editors, or on other content platforms which are not directly supported.

Importing source content snapshots

The content plugins support import of source content snapshots, so you can use this feature to transfer snapshots between content applications or from a custom editor to a supported content application, which can be useful for troubleshooting or visualisation of the geometry being exported.