[X3D-Public] [Source] TCNI, a leading 3D technology company joins the Web3D Consortium

[Joe D Williams]

> > Looks like Google is fishing for ideas about a new 3D API

It doesn't look like they are fishing, they already have their catch. 
What would you do if you were based on scripting html pages?
Of course the giant swoop and are now attempting to document it. It is 
nice to see that they picked a relevant example: table with four 
identical legs.
http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/docs/techoverview.html
I think the some of the basics are there to get people interested in 
web 3D until they can learn a more simple and automated way.

O3D is an open-source JavaScript API for creating interactive 3D 
graphics applications that run in a browser window

Some funny ones:

"We have reports that O3D does work in VMware on the Mac OS, as long 
as you enable DirectX acceleration."
"How do I attach multiple meshes to the same render group?"

"How can I share assets between COLLADA files?
Our current plan is to leave that up to the developer to implement."

"The lowest-level interface to O3D events, for those who want things 
as fast and unfiltered as possible, is through the event callback API 
...The pluginObject is the plug-in's DOM element."

"If your client area is resizeable, set the perspective matrix every 
frame in your render callback."

"This library contains functions that provide an easy way to get your 
content in front of the camera."

"This programmable pipeline makes use of a shader language, based on 
HLSL and Cg,"

" with a programmable graphics pipeline, the developer has complete 
control over the algorithms used in the vertex shader and the pixel 
shader. In addition, rasterizing and frame-buffer operations can be 
configured using the O3D API."

"The Hello, Cube sample creates a spinning red cube".
http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/docs/prettyhellocube.html
8.3KB+ of user code for a little html and the script to build and run 
the rcube code, and oohh, plus the 40-50KB for the script libraries t 
run in V8

"  cubePrimitive.primitiveType = g_o3d.Primitive.TRIANGLELIST;
  cubePrimitive.numberPrimitives = 12; // 12 triangles
  cubePrimitive.numberVertices = 8;    // 8 vertices in total"
now give the data for and IndexedFaceSet or an IndexedTriangleSet, 
except you don't need those pesky -1s.

Some Interesting Ones:

"O3D is fundamentally a shader-based system, and at heart it has no 
predefined lighting.
.. [somebody] implements a shader builder, which autogenerates a basic 
shader for simple materials. Currently, it builds a shader with a 
single point light source, which looks for its parameters on the 
Context as lightWorldPos (world position of the light) and 
lightColor."

"Why doesn't O3D use OpenGL's shading language (GLSL)?
There are a number of reasons we decided against using GLSL as our 
standard shading language:  ..."

"To mitigate these issues, the O3D plug-in embeds the V8 JavaScript 
engine."

THe JSON connection. At least this could make the javacscirpt 
relativel simple.

So, you create a div and invoke the V& to build your show, Find some 
geometry. somebody makes shaers or you may be able to use a texture, 
And now, let's spin that cube:

function renderCallback(renderEvent) {
  g_clock += renderEvent.elapsedTime * g_timeMult;
  // Rotate the cube around the Y axis.
  g_cubeTransform.identity();
  g_cubeTransform.rotateY(2.0 * g_clock);
}

Look like fun, huh gang? So much more fun to be impertive and you 
don't need that ol' plug-in, just anohter javascript engine and some 
libraries..

Best Regards,
Joe