[x3d-public] Call to Progress on X3D V4
Joe D Williams
joedwil at earthlink.net
Wed Jan 13 17:03:56 PST 2016
> X3Dom is a proprietary format ...
Really, is that true? What part is proprietary? Isn't all the X3Dom
code open?
Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: "doug sanden" <highaspirations at hotmail.com>
To: <x3d-public at web3d.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2016 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Call to Progress on X3D V4
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
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>
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
_______________________________________________
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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> x3d-public mailing list
> x3d-public at web3d.org
> http://web3d.org/mailman/listinfo/x3d-public_web3d.org
>
More information about the x3d-public
mailing list