[x3d-public] Call to Progress on X3D V4

Mon Jan 11 17:45:16 PST 2016

David,

Thanks for your response.

I live in Los Angeles. Here along with Silicon Valley are doing a lot in 
the initial work for defining the content, experience, and technology at 
the heart. The rise of VR has not been unexpected. There are a lot of 
start ups, and a lot of "definitions of standards" in the community.

(Speaking very generally here...) The community is not aware of X3D 
because it's not hot, it's not from Mozilla, Google, or Facebook, and 
(for the most part) the people doing this work have no idea of the past. 
They think they found something new when they can put a spinning cube on 
the screen. I have personally talked to s/w people who think they are 
developing something new, when it was not start of the art in 2000. So 
that, plus the idea of making buckets of money keeps them dreaming.

X3D does have problems in the HTML world. My complaint is that 
addressing it is not high enough priority within the Consortium. That is 
what I am trying to change. There is a major VR meetup in a couple of 
weeks here in LA. I would like to go there and say that the Consortium 
has at least an idea of how to address the changes necessary to make X3D 
compatible with HTML.

Leonard Daly

> hi Leonard,
>
> I completely understand your frustration with the situation.
> Looking at things objectively I believe that the recent phenomenal 
> interest in VR has taken the community by surprise. The X3D/VRML 
> community has been comfortable operating at a particular pace, however 
> circumstances are overtaking us.
>
> I was preparing the first lecture of my Semester 2 VR class over the 
> weekend, and was taken aback by the sheer number of startup (or should 
> it be upstart) attempts at developing a ‘VR’ language/platform 
> (proprietary or open).
>
> This ‘new’ VR industry is either unaware of X3D or has chosen to 
> bypass, for whatever reason, the standard.
> If this isn’t addressed soon X3D may become irrelevant, which none of 
> us want to see.
>
> I think one of the fundamental challenges facing the X3D WG and 
> community of users and developers, is simply the lack of awareness of 
> the standard in the VR industry.
>
> I’m not a member of the WG, however as a member of the X3D community I 
> genuinely appreciate the efforts of the WG, and so I will do whatever 
> I can to promote/champion X3D.
>
> cheers
> rgds Dave
> __________________________
> David Murphy
>
> Department of Computer Science
> Room 1.77
> Western Gateway Building
> University College Cork
> Ireland
>
>
> e: d.murphy at cs.ucc.ie <mailto:d.murphy at cs.ucc.ie>
> map: http://bit.ly/WGB_UCC
> w: http://multimedia.ucc.ie
> w: http://www.imclab.ucc.ie
> w: http://www.cs.ucc.ie/staff/dmurphy.html
>
>
>
>
>
>> On 11 Jan 2016, at 06:04, Leonard Daly <web3d at realism.com 
>> <mailto:web3d at realism.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Last week I sent a message to the X3D WG about my concerns on lack of 
>> progress for developing a V4 specification. This message is expanding 
>> the reach of the original message and providing additional requested 
>> material, specifically examples of situations where I would want 
>> and/or expect X3D to run in a browser. The list of examples is being 
>> expanded as developments occur.
>>
>> The marketplace is making significant progress in commercialization 
>> of virtual and augmented reality. There is no standard format for 
>> expressing 3D content. The marketplace will choose at least one 
>> format and it will not likely be X3D.  Already there are alternative 
>> markup languages emerging that attempt to do what X3D has been doing 
>> for decades: create an HTML like language for 3D graphics.  GLAM is 
>> an example proposed by Tony Parisi, and most recently Mozilla’s 
>> A-frame, released 3 weeks ago, both attempting to speak in the 
>> language of web developers to bring VR/AR to the browser.
>>
>> I am very frustrated in the lack of progress of the Working Group in 
>> developing a specification for X3D V4. There are number of issues 
>> that have been raised about the fundamentals of designs of X3D that 
>> appear to be incompatible with an HTML/DOM environment. A partial 
>> list includes the following:
>> * name-scope handling
>> * scripting
>> * interfaces to the nodes and fields through the DOM API
>> * event handling
>> * profile structure and contents
>> * newly supported formats (geometry and media)
>>
>> Examples of X3D/X3DOM: http://tools.realism.com/x3d-v4-issue-examples
>> There are other concerns about event model that are not expressed in 
>> these examples mostly due to being unable to create an example that 
>> clearly shows the problem. It does exists and you may see some of 
>> that in sporadic or jerky movement in the animation examples using X3DOM.
>>
>> I have a concept specification that is getting updated at 
>> http://tools.realism.com/specification/x3d-v40. The was first sent to 
>> the X3D WG in November and has had a couple of other discussions.
>>
>> My specific technical concerns with the specification are listed in 
>> the Author's Notes at 
>> http://tools.realism.com/specification/x3d-v40/authors-notes
>>
>> Most importantly, it is not clear to me who the WG believes is the 
>> target audience for the specification and how the specification will 
>> meet that audience’s needs.
>>
>> As Co-Chair on Sabbatical and current member of the WG, I need to 
>> take some responsibility for not getting there. I have been working 
>> on developing a new specification and the beginning of an open-source 
>> web-based application for building scenes in the new specification. 
>> The web application is called “Basx3D - 3D the HTML Way”. I have 
>> posted an article about it’s initial release - 
>> http://realism.com/blog/basx3d. This post and one describing the X3D 
>> V4 proposal are publicly available.
>>
>> The application is targeted at web developers who do not need to know 
>> the details of creating an X3D by hand. The concept was based on 
>> Unreal Engine and Unity editors. I will be continuing development of 
>> both the application and proposal on a frequent and regular basis. 
>> Basx3D and the proposed specification function as a two-way 
>> development effort with Basx3D reflecting the proposal and providing 
>> implementation information and experience back to the specification.
>>
>> Although outside of its scope, the WG must be aware of the audience 
>> to which the standard is written, and the audience to which the 
>> standard is being promoted.  This concept is crucial to the future 
>> adoption of X3D and should ultimately be agreed upon by the BOD, but 
>> the WG needs to understand and follow this strategy which will 
>> ultimately influence prioritization of WG activity.
>>
>> I am firmly committed to an open, royalty free, ISO ratified standard 
>> that communicates 3D data and its behaviors over networks, especially 
>> the dominant global network which is the internet, and which 
>> universally supports HTML5.  I don’t want to see the decades of work 
>> and passion that have been invested in the standards maintained and 
>> promoted by the Web3D Consortium relegated to the corridors of 
>> obscurity.  Because of many trends in software and hardware, a nexus 
>> of opportunity has been created like never before of which we can 
>> take advantage to catapult the Consortium’s standards to significant 
>> global adoption.  Let’s not miss this chance!
>>
>>
>> Leonard Daly
>> Basx3D and X3D V4 Specification Proposal Author
>>
>>
>> In Full Support
>> Mike Aratow
>> Treasurer, Web3D Consortium
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> *Leonard Daly*
>> X3D Co-Chair
>> Cloud Consultant
>> President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> x3d-public mailing list
>> x3d-public at web3d.org <mailto:x3d-public at web3d.org>
>> http://web3d.org/mailman/listinfo/x3d-public_web3d.org
>

-- 
*Leonard Daly*
X3D Co-Chair
Cloud Consultant
President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/attachments/20160111/e05817e4/attachment.html>