Here's the scenario: The marketing group creates three page PDF files of "widget" product information. They use various WYSIWYG as well as automated information extraction tools (beyond our control) to create PDF brochures of our products. On page two, there is a small region on the page they have reserved for a 3D view of the product. My job is to transform this small region into an interactive 3D view of the product that Acrobat users can use to zoom and rotate the widget, as this functionality is bundled with the free Acrobat reader.
What I've learned so-far: I am able to create U3D and corresponding TEX files from the source 3D CAD part files using MeshLab. I am able to create standalone 3D PDF files with the U3D and TEX files using pdflatex. The resulting 3D PDF file works very well.
The problem: I can not find a way to clip and append the 3D PDF content into an external PDF as described in the scenario. I know that it's possible to use Acrobat Pro to do this, but due to the large quantity of products and budget issues we need to automate the process, preferably using open source tools.
Any suggestions?
