The Mathematica Package below exports to either of two popular human readable raytracer file formats (not 3ds which is proprietary/binary), and can be used Live in Mathematica interactively/Live. (it requires rayshade or povray binary which are easily available)
https://sourceforge.net/projects/rayshade-math/
Mathematica has import/export to institutional formats for geo mapping and chemical. For most, those are the work-horses and more the focus - but i have no idea there how well mm does exporting. Importing wise, Mathematica can use maps we all know that!
Below is a simple Mathematica scene with two optional raytrace directives inserted to specify appearance Mathematica/GL does not support.
<<rayshade`
g = Graphics3D[
Table[With[{p = {i, j, k}/3}, {RGBColor[p], RGBColor[p],
Sphere[p, .1]}], {i, 2}, {j, 2}, {k, 2}]];
g=Graphics3D[{RayInput["rayinput repeat # # # reflect .2"],
Table[With[{p = {i, j, k}/3}, {Opacity[.75
], Specularity[RGBColor[p], 60], RGBColor[p],
Sphere[p, .1]}], {i, 2}, {j, 2}, {k, 2}], {Opacity[.44], ,
Specularity[RGBColor[.7, .7, .7], 60],
RayInput["rayinput # # # reflect .7 index 1.3"],
Sphere[{1/3 + 1/6, 1/3 + 1/6, 1/3 + 1/6}, .15]}}];
Rayshade[]
Much more complicated Graphics3D can be done, for 11.0 (too big to comment on) many will work, many not without Normal[] (due of lack of access to internal Mathematica code).
I'm interested if anyone is exporting to a Cuda rendering suite or even 3DStudio ARt Renderer and how well Export[] did (why is: in the past export was poor, could only do single objects, and i have no recent copy of 3DStudio to check today's results and I do not have fingers crossed since Wolfram only shows pics being exported not their results after rendering)
