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i-drop Indicator 523
photos, and any design data in MAX or STL form.
In this way, you are assured instant access to the
latest desig n content, free from leading vendors
around the world, without leaving your desktop.
For Web Content Provid ers
Any Web page that uses standard HTML source
code can easily be enhanced s o that 3ds Max
users can access it for content. Making bitmap
textures (.B MP, .JPG, .GIF, .TIF, e tc.) available
for download ing requires no special HTML
coding, but there are guidelines you should follow
for optimum utility to 3ds Max users. Making
geometry files (.max)availableto3dsMaxuser
requires s ome simple modifications to your H TML
source code.
See also
i-drop Indicator (page 3–523)
i-drop Indi ca tor
In order to support the World W ide Web as a
primary source of product information, Autodesk
has introduced the i-drop™ Indicator. This enables
manufacturers and design professionals to publish
and acquire design data using standard Web pages.
The i-drop Indicator is used to transfer content
from the World Wide Web by means of a
drag-and-drop operation. The content can be any
type of file (such as a geometry or a raster file) that
thecontentproducerhasmadeavailableandthat
the application will accept.
For example, imagine that you are a lighting
designer and require a specific fixture to embed
w ithin your 3ds Max scene. Now imagine that a
lighting company such as ERCO has a Web site
containing a library of their fixtures online. You
can browse this librar y, then drag and drop the
appropriate fixture into your scene. You don’t need
todownloadthefileandtheninsertit.Nowyou
candraganyMAXfilefromani-drop-enabled
web site and drop its geometry directly into your
Autodesk product.
In addition to geometry, you can drag and drop
photometric data, cost information, materials, and
so on.
An i-drop object in a Web page is an open gateway
between the content provider’s server and the
Autodesk software user’s desktop . Web pages that
containi-dropobjectscanbedesignedtolook
and behave exactly like standard Web pages in a
standard Web browser. You simply drag the i-drop
object from the provider’s Web page and drop it
onto a desktop or into an application.
The desktop or application is the i-drop target.
The i-drop target requests the data in one or more
specific clipboard formats and receives the content.
This is called being "i-drop aware." i-drop can also
deliver data in an y of the system default clipboard
formats. What the application gets depends on
what clipboard format it requires. For example, if
the user drags to the desktop, the desktop takes a
file. If the user dr ags to a text editor, the text editor
takes textual data. What the desktop or application
takesisindependentofi-drop.
For more information, see h
ttp://
idrop.autodesk.com.
Geometr y File Formats
The Import (page 3–485) and Expor t (page 3–486)
commands on the File menu (page 3–673) let
you share 3D geometry with other 3D modeling
programs. The software can import and export
avarietyoffileformats.
3ds Max can a lso open DRF Files (page 3–527),
which are created in VIZ Render, a rendering tool
packaged with Autodesk Architectural Desktop.