Maya and the web
 

Is it possible to use Maya and Mel to do simply interactive 3D graphics on a web page?

For example display a single long bone (like the Tibia) and allow a user to pan, dolly, zoom, and say bend and twist it at an adjustable location along its axis?

I am writing a medical research paper on long bone deformation and want to create a web based model to demonstrate some of the concepts from my research at an upcomming symposium.



PS - If not, can any of the graphics guru's out there point me in a direction? I wanted to use maya because it allows me to not only show the bone but the efforts of adjusting the bone on the leg itself.

I currently model the lower leg and foot as well as the bones then rig and bind them. I place an additional joint at the location of the complex bone deformation which I can then use to show the effect of the deformation on the bone and how it affects the leg and foot.

Hmmm... not too sure about that, you could export it as a VRML file and do it that way, the users borwser would have to have a VRML plug in such as Cortona.

Yeah I was doing some research on that and saw other packages like X3D but I don't know much about them and I was hoping I could produce something that took advantage of what I already do using Maya directly along with set driven keys to move the addition joint in the rig to show the distortion in the bone and its affect on the leg and foot.

I'd effectively have to write all the code to rig and bind a vrml model and I would just not have the skill or time to do that.

You dont need to, you can export staraight to a VRML file (theres a Maya to VRML plug in in the plug in manager) all that you require then is a free plug in form parallel graphics to move round the scene so theres no coding at all in that part.

The Vrml file also contains animation within it so so you could just have an on click event for the bone to move (or just loop the animation over and over so thers no coding at all)

Dunno if this will do everything you want but might be a semi solution.

perhaps in shockwave