I am debugging a custom geo file writer. I load a simple stl file and then save it as a geo. GPlay.exe will load it on a OSX and Win 10. H13 can not read the file on Win 10. H15 can not read the file on OSX Yosemite.

Houdini File node displays “Unable to read file”. If I select Load “Info”, the info spreadsheet lists 1 point. The info has the correct point count and the correct primative count, with the vertexcount = -1

GPlay shows all of the points, displays the geometry and acts like everything is perfect.

The geo file looks like this:

PGEOMETRY V2
NPoints 34830 NPrims 68184
NPointGroups 1 NPrimGroups 1
NPointAttrib 1 NVertexAttrib 0 NPrimAttrib 1 NAttrib 0
PointAttrib
L2norm 1 float 0
0.5 -0.218615 -0.1875 1 (0.577017)
…
2.34375 0 -0.0311629 1 (2.34396)
PrimitiveAttrib
L2norm 1 float 0
Run 68184 Poly
3 < 0 1 2
…
3 < 21796 34802 21830
beginExtra
endExtra

When I create a box inside houdini and save it. The header and format of the ascii geo file looks completely different, but the GPD.txt file that came with Houdini shows a header file that starts with PGEOMETRY V#. The HDK specifically says, “The .geo and .bgeo format are documented at length in $HH/public/GPD/gpd.txt which ships with Houdini.”

I am confused, why GPlay reads the geo file I created and Houdini can not read the file.

Brad Carvey

> NPointGroups 1 NPrimGroups 1

You have some groups declared in the header, but apparently there are none in the geo's body.
Set the numbers to 0: “NPointGroups 0 NPrimGroups 0”.
For some reason GPlay is more forgiving about this and can parse such ill-formatted files.

The new geo format is different indeed, it's JSON-based, to save out an old-style reference file select .hclassic in the format drop-down.

Thanks axebeak, that fixed the problem.

Brad Carvey