COLLADA Physics Compatibility Matrix

Note: This article is a work in progress.

Several tools can export and import some subset of COLLADA 1.4.1 Physics.

We break up COLLADA Physics in different categories (basic collision shapes, advanced collision shapes, constraints, instancing, etc.) and test compatibility between different applications.

This should help to support developers who are interested in COLLADA Physics.

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Ageia provides a PhysX plugin for 3ds max that supports COLLADA .dae export (related to NxuStream).

Status January 2007

Versions of test:

1. Maya 8.0
2. 3ds Max 8.0
3. Blender 2.43
4. ColladaMaya 3.0
5. Nima 0.6 beta
6. PhysX for Maya 2.6
7. ColladaBlender 0.3.142
8. ColladaMax 3.0
9. CreateDynamics January 2007
10. Bullet 2.42b

Will check new versions of Blender 2.43, CreateDynamics, ColladaMaya 3.0, ColladaMax, PhysX for Maya 2.6.2 and Bullet 2.42b.

Status 2006

Versions of test:

1. ColladaMaya 2.04
2. Maya 8.0
3. CreateDynamics October 2006
4. Blender 2.42
5. Bullet 2.20

Physics Compatibility Matrix

Application:	ColladaMaya Export	CreateDynamics Export	ColladaBlender Export	XSI Export	Bullet Snapshot Export
ColladaMaya Import	untested	untested	untested	untested	untested
CreateDynamics import	untested	works details	untested	untested	works details
ColladaBlender import	untested	broken	Blender 2.42 roundtrip works details	untested	untested
XSI Import	untested	untested	untested	untested	untested
Bullet Physics Import	works details	works with details	untested	untested	untested

Future compatibility testing

More detailed compatibility testing will follow.

For physics, the features could be naturally split by 3 categories:

• collision shapes
• rigidbody features
• constraint features

and then by:

• basic
• advanced

So, for example:

• Collision detection:
  • Basic: sphere,box,capsule shapes
  • Advanced: convex, (concave) mesh and compounds, inertia tensor (etc.)

• RigidBody features:
  • Basic: mass, dynamic/static
  • Advanced: initial velocity, hierarchical instancing (etc.)

• Constraints:
  • Basic: generic D6 joint
  • Advanced: limits, motors, springs, hierarchical instancing

(etc.)