[X3D-Public] X3D Tools Release: X3dSpecificationChecker

[Don Brutzman]

We're happy to report that Dmitri Rubinstein has submitted an important
new open-source contribution for Saarland University that checks
the X3D Specification documents for correctness.   It is
available at

http://x3d.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/x3d/www.web3d.org/x3d/tools/X3dQualityAssurance/X3dSpecificationChecker/

Thanks Dmitri for producing and offering this great asset.  Your joining the
weekly teleconference today was very helpful.

There is a README file and further documentation being added to this site.

The tool also has the ability to generate interface and inheritance diagrams.
See attached example for MovieTexture.  These are produced by the GraphViz
open-source project.  http://www.graphviz.org

As an example of it's outputs, please see
http://x3d.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/x3d/www.web3d.org/x3d/tools/X3dQualityAssurance/X3dSpecificationChecker/doc/x3d_errata.txt

The code is written in Python.  There are directions for how to run this under Linux.

Dick is already applying changes to the X3D v3.3 specification Draft International
Standard (DIS) which he is editing.  This document will soon be reviewed by the
specification team and then sent back to ISO JTC 1 for formal review.  So the
timing was great!  We will continue any open topics on the specification in a
separate email thread.

Next steps:
- Further documentation and details (Dmitri)
- Confirm (or add) instructions on how to build and run the software under other operating systems
- Create a netbeans project for running and building under Java (Don)
- Confirm all errata are fixed in X3D specification, DTD and Schema (Dick and Don)
- Check in errata-response document (Dick and Don)
- Integrate and verify the download urls for the specifications
	http://www.web3d.org/realtime-3d/specification
- Run the tests against other specifications in the X3D family
- Determine if any additions to the software are needed to handle those other specs
- Determine if any changes are needed by the other specification interfaces
- Integrate documentation and/or code for graphviz package in the build
- Automate the generation of all node-interface images that are feasible
- Produce additional specification documentation from these assets and publish online
- Check in all of the image products so that they are also available for other tools
- Consider future publishing techniques or practices that might be useful, such as utilizing CSS id values

Of particular interest is Figure 4.2 Object Hierarchy in the X3D Abstract specification.
This was originally developed and maintained by Joe Williams, it is a wonderful resource.
http://www.web3d.org/files/specifications/19775-1/V3.2/Part01/concepts.html#f-Objecthierarchy
A good goal would be to produce individual diagrams for each node and interface, inserting links in the HTML.

If anyone would like to help with these activities, please feel free to volunteer!

Thank you for this important contribution Dmitri.

all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman
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