As we disclosed during our last live webcast, Capture 2020 will feature support for the powerful new glTF 3D file format.
While glTF is still young it is being embraced by the 3D industry at a remarkable pace. It is maintained by Khronos as an open project and pushed as the "JPEG of 3D". The format is modern and supports several features of interest to the Capture user, including PBR materials and structured extensibility.
Another notable software that already supports glTF is Blender, the popular free open source 3D modelling software which has gained incredibly in popularity since their 2.8 release in July last year. With Capture 2020, seamless and highly functional model interchange with Blender becomes possible in a way that is similar to what became possible when we added SketchUp file support in 2014.
Capture 2020 will feature the ability to both import and export glTF files (.gltf and .glb). File saved with the .glb extension are fully contained, with all 3D model information along with materials and textures, handy when exchanging files. Several 3D asset web sites such as TurboSquid and Sketchfab already provide 3D assets in glTF format.
Naturally we are also making use of glTF's powerful extensibility. With Capture 2020 we will release a glTF extension called "CAPTURE_model" which adds lighting design metadata to exported glTF files. This data includes information about which objects are lighting fixtures, what type they are, how they are patched as well as other information such as channel and circuit numbers. Developers interested in previewing exported glTF files from Capture and the new CAPTURE_model extension can find samples on our Developer Support page already.