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I was wondering if anyone has come across a tool, or can point to code snippets, for batch importing Collada (.dae) files into a MultiPatch format. I have found a good "How to", but it is all manual. Also with this manual process the Collada file is not imported into is exact geospatial location.

Any help would be appreciated. Here is the youtube link to the "How to" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udhm3yxVinc

Thanks...

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Do you have FME or the Data Interoperability Extension? – blah238 Jan 18 at 3:30
I believe I have both, but I know I have Data Interoperability – Ryan Garnett Jan 18 at 16:03

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I have successfully used FME in the past to do this type of conversion. I can't remember if there were any other quirks to the translation, but if you've never used it before you would essentially just add the appropriate readers and writers, hook them up and see if it works.

In my case I was converting from Google Earth (KMZ) files, which use COLLADA (.dae) models internally. The KML in the KMZ file is what provides the georeferencing information, and FME reads it automatically. I believe the COLLADA specification provides no place to store georeferencing information, so you will need to address that issue somehow. This FME Evangelist post talks about the georeferencing issue: GeoNerds, Breadcrumbs, and 3D Georeferencing

See also, related question: How can I export a sketchup Model to ArcGIS's Multipatch?

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Thank you, this is great. I am having the georeferencing issue with Collada, so I was looking at other options. I will look into FME and give it a test. As a side note, when I loaded the Collada files manually, ArcScene crashed after 5 or 6 were loaded. Just a note to other who are looking at doing this. – Ryan Garnett Jan 18 at 16:47
Actually turns out the specification does include georeferencing information. See section 5-40, "geographic_location". It may be that it's simply not present in your files. – blah238 Jan 18 at 16:50

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