Convert 3D model to video [closed]

Question

I am looking for a free software that I can run via command line under windows to convert a 3D model (stl, ply or 3ds file) into a video format like avi, mpeg or ogv. The object should rotate in the video.

EDIT: I found a program thats able to do the trick. Its called ParaView. It can load almost any kind of 3D file format and save it as an animation (avi). My problem is that you cannot simply run ParaView via command line parameters. You need to run python scripts to perform tasks via command line.

I found a solution to create an animation with ParaView but two steps are missing:

movie = servermanager.animation.AnimationScene()
movie.ViewModules = [GetActiveView()]
movie.NumberOfFrames = 10
movie_writer = servermanager.vtkSMAnimationSceneImageWriter()
movie_writer.SetFileName("C:\movie.avi")
movie_writer.SetFrameRate(1)
movie_writer.SetQuality(2)
movie_writer.SetAnimationScene(movie.SMProxy)
movie_writer.Save()

1. I don't know how to load a 3D model file with ParaView's python script.
2. I don't know how to set the camera to orbit the object. (it's no problem in the GUI but in the python script).

Thank you

Answer 1

You cannot simply convert a model to a video. You need some software to actually load the model and animate it. You could try blender, its free. There you would need to load the model, tell it how to animate it (rotate) and render it to a video file.