[x3d-public] Call to Progress on X3D V4

Tue Jan 12 09:36:26 PST 2016

OK thanks Leonard.
-Doug
more..
I don't think I can help - not a dom or california expert.
more..
But I gather no or not-enough key players have submitted what they are doing for consideration as a standard ie X3Dom is a proprietary format.
That -and the proliferation of other formats like GLAM- may indicated investor desire for prorpietary / copyright /patented technology with the upside potential of 'lock-in' and 'switching costs'.  Lets call this the LOCKIN hypothesis for format proliferation.
If LOCKIN is the motivation, then one thing web3d.org can do is sell proprietary lock-in formats. Take v3.3 and scramble it through a translator/generator so it looks different, and sell it as a proprietary format, with lockin/switching costs for users, pleasing to investors. Except _keep_ the scrambler/translator/generator pattern. So that X3D files can be quickly translated into the proprietary format.
more..
Likewise if you break out the details for all the issues, even though we may not be dom experts, we may come up with ideas.
For example Creative Strategy (a book) shows how to break a problem/issue into elements. Then look in other domains for solutions to each element. Then pick a creative combination of the element solutions into a whole solution.
http://sites.google.com/site/airdrieinnovationinstitute/creative-strategy
more..
For example if you could break out for us the elements of why DOM integration is desired. I gather the cobweb v3.3 approach isn't dom integrated. What's wrong with cobweb, and what's so much better about x3dom, for example, and give details of why one is popular in california, and the other not. Then with the elements, we can look and see if there's something inbetween.
For example being able to do movietexture may be easier with dom integration. OK but then could the node-specific implementation of a non-dom x3d include dom functionality? Or perhaps you want to be able to do jQuery. OK could there be a special xQuery for x3d, and jQuery delegates to it? And so forth.
The more breakout of the issues you give, the more chance a non-dom, non-california expert can chime in.

Creative Strategy - Airdrie Innovation Institute<http://sites.google.com/site/airdrieinnovationinstitute/creative-strategy>
sites.google.com
Prosperity through productivity, productivity through innovation, innovation through culture, culture through aggregated and disseminated insights and processes, in Airdrie Alberta Canada

<https://sites.google.com/site/airdrieinnovationinstitute/creative-strategy>
Creative Strategy - Airdrie Innovation Institute<https://sites.google.com/site/airdrieinnovationinstitute/creative-strategy>
sites.google.com
Prosperity through productivity, productivity through innovation, innovation through culture, culture through aggregated and disseminated insights and processes, in Airdrie Alberta Canada

________________________________
From: x3d-public <x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org> on behalf of Leonard Daly <web3d at realism.com>
Sent: January 11, 2016 7:46 PM
To: x3d-public at web3d.org
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Call to Progress on X3D V4

Doug,

Thanks for your reply. The Consortium has known this time would be coming for at least 2 years, probably closer to 4. As a standards organization, the Consortium should not be pushing something new; however, there is considerable investment in the past and that has been one of the strengths of X3D. Code from 20 years ago can still be run.

>From everything that I have seen in 20 years working with HTML; applications that are going to run in the browser, need to work with and interact with the DOM. I am happy to consider any implementation that successfully does so.

Right now work in the Consortium is on polishing V3.3. As far as I can tell, the only active work on X3D with HTML is work I am doing and occasional reviews by the X3D Working Group.

It is important to pay attention to what the marketplace is developing, but the proposals coming out (GLAM, A-Frame, etc.) do not support X3D or any structures from X3D. I believe that there is a lot of maturation already for parts of the environment. The Consortium could play a very strong role in steering the direction of declarative 3D. We will have no role if we just sit on the sidelines and watch.

In the past the Consortium succeeded by lasting longer than anyone else. This time is different because the organizations involves are bigger (Google, Facebook), more diverse (Mozilla, Hollywood studios, startups in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego; just to name the major centers in California), and multiple industries (3D printing, entertainment, healthcare and wellness, industrial maintenance). There is no lasting out the others now.

Leonard Daly

>From my perspective^, V4 has had to 'burn the candle from both ends' - discover what's possible/doable/practical in html/webgl while moving x3d in that direction. So being too quick/early with a V4 may be sub-optimal.  Maybe V4 is the wrong name. For this stage of the game.
What might help is starting a new series of standards from 1.0 ie webx3dA 1.0, webx3dB 1.0 with A being the X3Dom style and B being the cobweb style. That would allow for a C, D or anything else that comes a long. Then if/when the world chooses a winner, when the dust settles a bit more, rename it.
In other words, I think you could/should be capturing things as they mature naturally, rather than steering/forcing the whole process. Relax a bit.
-Doug
^about me:
I'm a self-declared pseudo expert in VR: I follow in others footsteps and try and catch on.
* I've worked in spaghetti C native code in project freeWRL for 6 years
* taught game programming course in DX/C++ 6 week
* animated an industrial simulator in .wrl for a year
* modeled a historical townsite project in blender, exported to x3d for flux and kml for googleEarth  and ported x3d to x3dom and cobweb :
https://sites.google.com/site/airdriehistoricaltour/
And currently working toward accommodating HMD emulators and desktop configurations in freewrl (still native/C code, V3.3).
Before that, 2 decades of photogrammetric systems engineering and stereo machine vision algorithms.
Airdrie Historical Virtual Tour<https://sites.google.com/site/airdriehistoricaltour/>
sites.google.com
Airdrie Historical Virtual Tour - 3D rendering in googleEarth, virtual reality and webgl of early Airdrie,AB townsite, with photos placed

________________________________
From: x3d-public <x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org><mailto:x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org> on behalf of David Murphy <d.murphy at cs.ucc.ie><mailto:d.murphy at cs.ucc.ie>
Sent: January 11, 2016 5:35 AM
To: Leonard Daly
Cc: x3dom-users at lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:x3dom-users at lists.sourceforge.net>; X3D Graphics public mailing list
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Call to Progress on X3D V4

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
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University College Cork
Ireland

e: d.murphy at cs.ucc.ie<mailto:d.murphy at cs.ucc.ie>
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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> 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/

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