alembic-fs

This is an FUSE based filesystem view for Alembic files.

Getting Started

To build it, edit the Makefile to point at the appropriate locations on your system and run:

make

In the root directory. Apologies for not providing a portable Makefile, I've got no experience with creating them.

Then run:

abcd <alembic file>

And you will be placed in a new shell at the top level of the new Alembic filesystem which has the following features:

• The object hierarchy is represented as a directory hierarchy.
• Object properties found in a directory called "properties" at the appropriate object level.
• Compound properties are representated as folders with subfolders for scalar and array properties.
• Scalar and array properties are represented as folders containing "Property Views" as files. There are the following property views:
  • values: Contains a space separated list of the values of that property.
  • max: Contains the single maximum value of the property.
  • min: Contains the single minimum value of the property.
  • json: Contains the values, max and min data marked-up as a json object.

Exit the shell, with exit or Ctrl-D, to leave and unmount the filesystem.

NOTE: Properties which have names starting with a "." will fall foul of the standard Unix convention which considers them hidden.

Example Session

test1$ abcd Xform_tree.abc
mounting file system...
Xform_tree.abcd$ ls
4_0  4_1  4_2  4_3
Xform_tree.abcd$ cd 4_0/
4_0$ ls
3_0  3_1  3_2  3_3  properties
4_0$ cd 3_3/
3_3$ ls
2_0  2_1  2_2  2_3  properties
3_3$ cd properties/
properties$ ls
properties$ ll
total 14M
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 .
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 ..
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 .xform
properties$ cd .xform/
.xform$ ll
total 23M
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 .animChans
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 .inherits
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 isNotConstantIdentity
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 .ops
dr-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 .vals
.xform$ cd .ops/
.ops$ ll
total 19M
-r-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 json
-r-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 max
-r-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 min
-r-------- 1 mike mike 4.0K 2011-11-19 16:53 values
.ops$ cat json 
{
    "values" : [ 16, 32, 32, 32, 0 ],
    "max" : 32,
    "min" : 0
}
.ops$ cat max 
32
.ops$ cat min 
0
.ops$ cat values 
16 32 32 32 0 
.ops$ python
Python 2.7.1+ (r271:86832, Apr 11 2011, 18:13:53) 
[GCC 4.5.2] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import simplejson
>>> simplejson.load(open("json"))
{'max': 32, 'values': [16, 32, 32, 32, 0], 'min': 0}
>>> 
.ops$ exit
test1$

Requirements

Development is currently done with:

• Fuse 2.8.5
• Alembic 1.0.2

Alembic requires:

• Boost 1.44
• hdf5 1.8.7
• ilmbase 1.0.1

Credits

Thank you to:

• The Alembic team
• fuse-examplefs