How do I get a sharedcopy of a TDSModel?

[itistoday]

I'm storing several models that will be used frequently in a HashMap.  From this, I need to be able to get a sharedcopy TDSModel so that all the new models will be able to use use TDSModel's animation feature.  So far, I can't seem to figure out a way to do this, and frequently am running into class casting problems.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

This is bits and pieces of what I use, hope you can understand it...

(Snippet from Class modelCache) ---
   private HashMap models;

   /**
    * Load a 3DS File
    * @param modelName
    * @return
    */
   public TDSModel loadTDSModel(String modelName) {
       if (models.get(modelName) == null) {
           try {
               TDSModel model = new TDSLoader().load(modelName,true);
               models.put(modelName, model);
           }
           catch (Exception e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
                       System.out.println("3DS Model " + modelName + " could not be loaded! Exiting!");
                       System.exit(0);
                       return null;
           }            
       }
       
       return (TDSModel) models.get(modelName);        
   }


(Snippet from Actor class) ----
   private Shape3D s;
   private Appearance a;
   private BranchGroup model;

   public void init(String modelName) {
       if (modelName.endsWith("obj")) {
          model = world.getModelCache().loadOBJModel(modelName);
       } else if (modelName.endsWith("3ds")) {
           model = world.getModelCache().loadTDSModel(modelName);
           //s = (Shape3D) ((TransformGroup) model.getChild(0)).getChild(0);
           //a = s.getAppearance();
       }

       tgRot.addChild(model.sharedCopy());
       group.addChild(tgRot);        
       //group.setShowBounds(true, true);
       world.addTransformGroup(group);
       world.addActor(this);
   }

========

TDSModel extends BranchGroup. So you can do shared copy on the BranchGroup and add it to other transform groups. etc etc.