[x3d-public] [x3d] Ideas for discussion during V4.0 Concepts: Name scopes and node name conflicts

[Michael Aratow]

Being not a deeply technical computer graphics person, but being a 
member of the Board as a Professional Member representative, I wanted to 
voice my opinion regarding the direction of X3D 4.0 as I interpret it 
from Don's post below.

To remain a viable and robust 3D standard for years to come, and to in 
fact be an archival 3D standard, X3D must remain relevant.  When I say 
relevant, that means to be easy to understand, to take advantage of 
current technology trends and to be widely adopted. Whereas X3D has 
weathered many ups and downs in the 3D industry over the past 25 years, 
outlasting numerous 3D files formats and initiatives, it is a completely 
different environment now.

The democratization of 3D content is upon us, fueled by decades of video 
game technology providing the impetus for better and better software 
tools, higher and higher performance graphics hardware, and a culture 
that now demands 3D experiences both within and without of the video 
gaming experience.  These forces have permeated the mobile industry, 
which is rapidly becoming the hardware platform of choice.  WebGL has 
enabled 3D within browsers without a plugin, making the browser an ideal 
distribution vehicle for 3D data and content, regardless of the device.  
Soon all mobile devices will be 3D content generators, thanks to built 
in 3D cameras, and virtual reality displays, thanks to Cardboard and 
GearVR (and others to come).

In my opinion, X3D cannot wait out the 3D storm this time, because 
forces influencing this industry are going to fundamentally change how 
3D fits into society, (think 3D printing, VR videos, etc.). X3D must 
adapt to meet this change, and with the web being the ideal distribution 
vehicle, X3D must adapt to the HTML environment.  Don's post to me 
speaks instead to a stay the course strategy, maintaining paradigms in 
contradistinction to HTML.  There are key concepts in X3D which clash 
with HTML, and if not reconciled, this will be to X3D's detriment and 
potential road to irrelevance.  Why?  Simple: Compare the number of web 
developers to the number of X3D developers; the difference is several 
orders of magnitude! This is the target audience of X3D, and they will 
not tolerate learning 2 different ways to do many of the functions 
necessary to create a dynamic 3D environment.  Some may say that 
different vertical industries will create their own proprietary 
applications and that web development is irrelevant, and I argue that 
while that is true, the volume and value of those applications pale in 
comparison to web applications within any industry.  Being part of one 
of the biggest vertical industries (healthcare) as an IT executive, I 
can tell you that off-the-shelf technology based on the web/cloud is the 
preferred choice.  Web applications are easier to maintain, easier to 
implement and easier to have personnel trained on their use.

Many may argue that this approach can endanger backwards compatibility, 
which is critically important for an */archival/* standard, but to that 
I say that members of the Consortium are very smart and capable of doing 
things that people say never could happen, like having polygons and 
voxels living together (gasp!) in the same scene.  They can develop 
converters for old content so that 20 year old content still runs on the 
newest browsers.

Many may say that web developers aren't our target audience, which to 
that I say, are you interested in protecting some academic institutions 
and a small portion of industrial applications from from vendor lock-in, 
or do you want to protect the majority of content developers, consumers 
and the majority of industrial applications from this lock-in (whose 
savings would then be passed on to the consumer)?  I choose the latter.

The way forward does not lack suggestions: Leonard Daly has done a 
significant amount of thinking and work on providing a vision of a 
possible X3D 4.0 that blends well with HTML concepts, Tony Parisi has 
developed GLAM, another "declarative language for creating 3D web 
content" and Kristian Sons' post on November 26 with subject: "XML3D 5.0 
and X3D V4.0" (XML3D being another declarative 3D web language) provides 
great lessons learned on some ways that X3D can adapt HTML concepts.  
The Consortium can co-opt all the best from these suggestions to provide 
a phenomenal 3D standard for the future.

I have been involved in some form with the Consortium for 20 years, from 
the VeRGe meetups organized by Linda Jacobson and Timothy Childs in the 
90s, to founding a startup using VRML technology in 2000, to 
representing the Consortium at SIGGRAPH and Professional Members on the 
Board for the last several years.  I want the Consortium to succeed in 
its original mission to provide an open, ISO ratified, royalty free, 
archival standard that is like an HTML for 3D on the web.  To achieve 
that mission, the Consortium needs to make X3D a web native language.

Thank you,

Michael Aratow, MD
Board of Directors, Web3D Consortium
Chief Medical Information Officer, San Mateo Medical Center
CEO, VRecover







Subject: 	Re: [x3d-public] [x3d] Ideas for discussion during V4.0 
Concepts: Name scopes and node name conflicts
Date: 	Wed, 18 Nov 2015 09:28:26 -0800
From: 	Don Brutzman <brutzman at nps.edu>
Organization: 	Naval Postgraduate School
To: 	Roy Walmsley <roy.walmsley at ntlworld.com>
CC: 	X3D Graphics public mailing list <x3d-public at web3d.org>, X3D 
Graphics Working Group <x3d at web3d.org>




[cc: x3d-public]

Thanks for the excellent leading questions and deep exploration in 
today's X3D working group teleconference.

Questions and my first-cut responses follow.

On 11/18/2015 2:40 AM, Roy Walmsley wrote:
 > Some things to consider and/or discuss re X3D V4.0 during X3D WG meeting.
 >
 > ·What is DOM?

DOM is the simplest possible API for accessing and traversing an 
HTML/XML tree structure, with accessors typically getting/setting nodes 
and attributes using string values.

DOM also includes several event models that are associated with 
navigating a tree, and passing values from one node to another.

DOM bindings have been formally specified for JavaScript and Java. No 
doubt a number of libraries exist in other languages as well.

The essential stability of the data structures, and the potential 
flexibility of the event-passing mechanisms, are the key to DOM's 
long-running stability, popularity and effectiveness.

 > ·What specification(s) should we be normatively considering? 
(http://www.w3.org/TR)

DOM level 3 has been a stable W3C Recommendation for 10 years
http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core

DOM behavior is central to HTML5 design.

3 Semantics, structure, and APIs of HTML documents
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/dom.html#dom

DOM level 4 is where DOM refinements are heading.  The editors include 
critical individuals in this long evolution.  Based on current status, 
it is pretty far down the W3C Process towards final approval.

W3C DOM4, W3C Proposed Recommendation 6 October 2015
http://www.w3.org/TR/dom/

An important working document, but not normative, is the "DOM Living 
Standard" by the whatwg
https://dom.spec.whatwg.org

Of course "living" standard/document is a euphemism that actually means 
"unstable" or "nonstandard."

I believe our strategy should be:

a. Let HTML5 be HTML5 and let X3D be X3D.  Each is well defined.
b. Let X3D v4 add minimal general capabilities that provide a clean 
elegant stable alignment with HTML5 and DOM level 4.
c. The essence of this alignment is event passing between HTML5 DOM and 
X3D event graph.
d. Do not add any functionality to X3D that breaks the current event 
model, or might have to change in the future when further DOM 
embellishments occur.

Suggest that the next question to explore is:

- What is SAI?  What are differences between "internal" and "external" SAI?

In short, SAI reconciled internal event passing and external event 
passing with the series of X3D API specifications.

No longer needed:  External Authoring Interface (EAI).  Nevertheless 
interesting (and possibly helpful) approaches were specified there.

 > ·How does DOM compare to SAI? 
(http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/introduction.html and 
http://www.web3d.org/documents/specifications/19775-2/V3.3/Part02/concepts.html#General). 
Are they conceptually different?

Comparing/contrasting each of these approaches with DOM APIs for tree 
manipulations and event passing will be fruitful.

X3DOM (and presumably Cobweb) provide existence proofs that event 
passing between each is possible and can be pretty simple.

Key X3D constructs:  ROUTEs, Inline IMPORT/EXPORT.

Also important parts of event-model review (identified by Joe) are 
Script directOut functionality, the notion of a render frame (time step) 
and event cascades, loop-breaking rule, etc.

Since many events between X3D and DOM will be related to user 
interaction, closely aligned topics are javascript callbacks, browser 
render loops, etc. etc.

Our eventual X3D v4 specification solution will define DOM constructs 
with equivalent 2-way functionality.

 >  Should SAI be renamed / substituted by DOM?

No.  Such a change would likely break X3D event semantics, either now or 
in the future.  That outcome is not acceptable.

Comparisons between SAI, EAI and DOM will let us assess what needs to be 
specified to align X3D and DOM.

 > ·What does the DOM say about namespaces? How have MathML and SVG been 
incorporated?
 >
 > ·Can we point to examples that illustrate difficulties?
 >
 > ·What practical steps should we take to progress?

Worthy questions deserving further elaboration.  We need to include CSS 
and Javascript in that review as well.

If/when we do this correctly, X3D rises to the level of being an 
effective addition that integrates well within the Open Web Platform (OWP).
http://www.w3.org/wiki/Open_Web_Platform

Precise terminology and descriptions are critical ingredients for 
effective design.  Thanks for all due diligence on these central topics.

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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