[X3D-Public] Xj3D Evolution - Web3D.org

[Don Brutzman]

Those of you monitoring the checkins to Xj3D may have noticed that Terry Norbraten has successfully upgraded the NPS branch of Xj3D to support the latest JOGL and JOAL for multiple operating systems.  Great progress!

After much consideration, our team would like to propose a number of improvements regarding how we all collaboratively improve Xj3D.

	Xj3D Evolution
	http://web3d.org/wiki/index.php/Xj3D_Evolution

Dialog is welcome on the source at web3d.org mailing list.  The initial information on the wiki page is copied here as a starting point in the email archives.  We'll be happy to further have teleconference discussion as part of the weekly X3D Working Group meeting, or dedicated teleconference session(s) to improve these points and plans further.

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Xj3D Evolution

Xj3D is an open-source Java implementation for X3D that has been used to demonstrate many capabilities for valuable projects and for specification development.

We are considering how to further stabilize, improve and accelerate development of the Xj3D code base. This page is collecting ideas for potential improvement.

Timeline Goals

These are familiar topics and lots of great work continues. It should be straightforward for interested stakeholders to discuss and agree on next steps.

     After initial discussion on the email list, we will make this the subject of a weekly X3D working group teleconference (held Wednesdays 8-10am pacific)
     Our goal is to have everything transitioned, stabilized, announced and ready for new contributions at the Web3D 2014 Conference and SIGGRAPH 2014 Conference in Vancouver Canada, 8-10 and 11-14 August.

Source Code Hosting

In order to achieve greater participation and development, the code needs to move to a stable public open-source repository. This will gain a lot more visibility among programmers who might want to contribute.

     xj3d.org has hosted the source for many years but development has been intermittent and somewhat less than fully open.

     The NPS branch of Xj3D is used for experimental development. Proven changes and unit tests are integrated back into the Xj3D trunk when stable.

SourceForge

     Web3D already has numerous assets checked into the Sourceforge X3D project
     Multiple participants have experience with using and administering this site
     The current code is in subversion, this can be migrated completely

GitHub

     GitHub includes the X3DOM project and a few other X3D-related projects
     TODO: it appears that the github pricing policy costs money to operate an organizational repository

Web3D.org home page

Several project builds are maintained on external repositories but their corresponding websites are automatically built and updated on web3d.org

     TODO: should www.web3d.org/xj3d (or somesuch) become the official home of Xj3D?

Mailing List

Web3D Consortium maintains the mailing list archives.

     Discussion list source at web3D.org is a misnomer and can be restarted as xj3d at web3d.org
     This list is also used for discussions on the SourceForge jgeom project
     Commits list source_x3d_cvs at web3d.org and commits account cvs-user at xj3d.org are also mis-named since subversion is used

Upcoming tasks
Merge modified Xj3D codebases

Excellent improvements to Xj3D have occurred over the years that were never re-integrated into the version-controlled code base. We hope to capture these improvements.

     Virginia Tech (VT) Structure And Form Analysis System (SAFAS) system, Nicholas Polys
     PartDB Inc., Hyokwang Lee
     Others?

Xj3D issue tracking

Currently two bugzilla sites are in existence.

     bugzilla.xj3d.org (master)
     NPS bugzilla

For maximum reliability over long term, we likely need to migrate to the native issue tracker associated with whatever source host is chosen.

Xj3D website improvements

The Xj3D website is moderately complete but woefully out of date. TODO:

     Confirm that website pages and documentation are checked into version control
     Automate website updates using local version
     Offer ways for people to contribute bug reports, issues, improvements

Programming problems

Several areas of Xj3D implementation are problematic. Dedicated attention and teamwork may help.

     Confirm updated jogl rendering is working, especially z-buffer and aliasing
     Extrusion
     Image rendering timing can miss colors/textures and hangs on numerous examples
     Compressed binary encoding hangs on numerous examples, but the apparent list of exception errors seems short
     Other project efforts are welcome
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Thanks especially to Alan, Justin and Rex, plus all other contributors, who got us here today.

Corrections improvements and additions to this wiki plan are welcome.   Does it make sense?

Thanks for considering the possibilities.   Have fun with Xj3D!

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