When choosing the first 3D file format that my custom 3D model renderer would support,
I came across a dilemma that’s comes up again and again in the field of Computer Science :
balancing human readability, and raw speed of computation.
This is something that most programmers will have come across in one form or another.
Do you send data over the network in a way that’s fast, or a way that’s easy to decode and understand?
Do you write obscure code that’s technically faster, or simple, clear code that may run slightly slower?
In the case of my renderer, I had to choose between a file format like OBJ, which is super easy to read as a human, and therefore simpler to decode, debug and manage, and a file format like FBX, which has smaller filesizes but is proprietary and very hard to decode.
A big priority of my project was always speed, and so I was initially drawn to FBX, but a bit of research quickly led me to multiple reasons why human readability is an important enough factor to seriously consider.
Ease of decoding Link to heading
OBJ, being super simple and human readable is by extension, very easy to write code to decode.
It’s trivial to write a decoder that basically goes line by line following the same process a human would to decode the file.
This reduces development time and allows you to focus more on other parts on the project.
Ease of debugging Link to heading
It’s incredibly easy to debug an OBJ parser.
The process and method of parsing files like OBJ are simple enough that you can track what the parser is doing at any moment in time. This saves on debugging and potential headaches trying to figure out why your decoder isn’t working.
More accessible Link to heading
OBJ’s human readability also makes it more accessible.
Anyone, with a little effort, can quickly understand how an OBJ file is layed out.
This allows people to make changes to OBJ files and understand the methodology of your parser even if they don’t have much knowledge of programming or the structure of a complex file.
This has obvious benefits if you’re working on a team with people who may have different skillsets, but also allows greater contributions to open-source projects and makes file formats like OBJ better to use in an educational setting also.