[x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D (Leonard Daly)

Sun Nov 20 20:28:02 PST 2016

Web3d.org could certify alternate / derivative formats as 'automatically reachable from x3d' for a nominal fee of 1M USD. 
________________________________________
From: x3d-public [x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org] on behalf of doug sanden [highaspirations at hotmail.com]
Sent: November 20, 2016 8:45 PM
To: X3D Graphics public mailing list
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D (Leonard Daly)

10) if a derivative format can be automatically generated from a standard format - the one directional conversion /compile /publish paradigm - it should earn a higher ranking than one that can't. For example if it doesnt support protos, scrpts, routes, but there's a way to reliably automatically generate the format's equivalents from a standard format without loss, that could be called publish-equivalent.

________________________________________
From: x3d-public [x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org] on behalf of Andreas Plesch [andreasplesch at gmail.com]
Sent: November 20, 2016 10:47 AM
To: X3D Graphics public mailing list
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D (Leonard Daly)

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:26:08 -0800
From: Leonard Daly <Leonard.Daly at realism.com<mailto:Leonard.Daly at realism.com>>
To: X3D Public <x3d-public at web3d.org<mailto:x3d-public at web3d.org>>
Subject: [x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D

Please read this all of the way through before commenting.

There is lots of interest in providing for the display of 3D data in the
browser. This includes both "flat" 3D (3D monoscopic displayed) and
stereoscopic  displays (aka VR or immersive). Libraries such as X3DOM,
Cobweb, THREE.js, and Babylon.js have pretty much addressed flat 3D.

There are several active efforts to address the VR display. All of the
work supports both flat & VR displays. Some of the efforts are
procedural (e.g., WebVR, THREE, etc.) and others are declarative (e.g.,
X3D, A-Frame).

The larger community is beginning to realize the need for a single
declarative means for handling the display, animation, and interaction
of 3D content. Most of the community is not a member of the Consortium,
and many are not familiar with X3D (in any form). There already is a
proposed path that starts with A-Frame. The discussions as to what the
declarative language will look like and how it will work will be
extensive and probably contentious (at least at times). There are a lot
of very large players (Google, especially) involved so it is important
to resolve difficult issues first before people (and organizations)
become too entrenched.

The two main insights for me coming out of the discussion after the web vr workshop were that there is only consensus on adding intrinsic browser support for vectors, quaternions, 4x4 matrices to support 3d graphics outside of webgl but nothing much else. And that the scene graph idea is considered too rigid and a failed experiment by some.

All of that was introduction to the main point: What do you (meaning the
reader) think are the essential characteristics of X3D when running in
an HTML page? I know that the answer is not everything because (1) as a
standard, X3D does not run in the web page; (2) X3D supports multiple
encodings, some of which are not HTML compatible (e.g., binary ones);
(3) X3D has Profiles and Components and no browser supports all Profiles
and Components. There are several other reasons that the answer is not
everything, so that doesn't count.

I can think of several things that are important. I'm not sure if these
are essential, or how to quantify or better state them

1) long-lasting (read and display 20 year old stuff)

I think essential in the forward looking sense that new content should be possible to display or convert after perhaps 10 years.

2) extensible

Other items that might be important to people
3) modeling
4) feature-rich (at least in some areas)
5) platform-neutral
6) volume displays (not just surfaces)

for me all important, 3 and 6 not essential

7) built-in navigation

essential for ease of use

8) high fidelity simulation capable; defined, deterministic time model

not essential for me; probably essential for others due to (perceived?) lack of alternatives.

9) self-documenting

meta nodes: important but not essential if other closely linked documentation methods are available (comments)

I am looking for a collection of items that are so important to X3D that
if removed, you would not have X3D, and when present you would recognize
it as X3D or at least a close relative. I would expect the list to vary
from person to person, but I also expect some characteristics to be
present in many people's list. The items on your list are likely to
reflect your personal interest and work with X3D and other 3D content.

-Andreas

--
*Leonard Daly*
3D Systems & Cloud Consultant
LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair
President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2016 13:54:26 +0000
From: doug sanden <highaspirations at hotmail.com<mailto:highaspirations at hotmail.com>>
To: X3D Public <x3d-public at web3d.org<mailto:x3d-public at web3d.org>>
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D
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        <BN6PR14MB177827A4FAF2DFBEB907377DB6B30 at BN6PR14MB1778.namprd14.prod.outlook.com<mailto:BN6PR14MB177827A4FAF2DFBEB907377DB6B30 at BN6PR14MB1778.namprd14.prod.outlook.com>>

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If it conforms to a formal x3d specification by the web3d consortium and the specification was developed through web3d formal processes, and registered as an iso standard, then its x3d.
Otherwise its not.
-Doug
...
But that raises a few questions:
Q1. what should all (growing list of) the derivatives / offshoots be called?
Q2. should web3d specs be adapted to allow them to be called x3d?
...
X3Daly, X3Dom, X3Doug - maybe 'derivatives' or 'offshoots' but not x3d spec conformant.
...
Lets say hypothetically someone wants to write a new book. They anticipate the publisher will want something 'new, hot and here to stay'. A totally new version of X3D, authorized by web3d.org<http://web3d.org> as their new standard, deprecating all their old standards, would be a great topic. Books would fly off the shelves.
But what if the formal process of web3d was focused on keeping together a broad community of content authors and app developers. Incrementalism would work better than hot and new. And incrementalism might be too boring for a publisher.

A few optional tactics we might see:
a) someone might try to usurp/bypass the web3d process to have their derivative declared - by popular vote or trick leading legal questions - the new standard, or a valid x3d.

However there are too many competing derivitives to declare a winner, and each derivative serves a good audience and needs to be there, and helps ensure a healthy 'big-tent web3d community' future by covering more technologies

b) writing a book about what's really happening. "YAW3D - Yet Another Web3d Derivative - an insider look at the exploding field of realtime 3D graphics' and then an intro chapter showing a map of where it all started, and derivatives forming, a chapter on each derivative -maybe one on X3Doug- and a chapter on how to develop your own derivaive. And what's common: learn one and the rest are easy.

________________________________________
From: x3d-public <x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org<mailto:x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org>> on behalf of Leonard Daly <Leonard.Daly at realism.com<mailto:Leonard.Daly at realism.com>>
Sent: November 18, 2016 8:26 PM
To: X3D Public
Subject: [x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D

Please read this all of the way through before commenting.

There is lots of interest in providing for the display of 3D data in the browser. This includes both "flat" 3D (3D monoscopic displayed) and stereoscopic  displays (aka VR or immersive). Libraries such as X3DOM, Cobweb, THREE.js, and Babylon.js have pretty much addressed flat 3D.

There are several active efforts to address the VR display. All of the work supports both flat & VR displays. Some of the efforts are procedural (e.g., WebVR, THREE, etc.) and others are declarative (e.g., X3D, A-Frame).

The larger community is beginning to realize the need for a single declarative means for handling the display, animation, and interaction of 3D content. Most of the community is not a member of the Consortium, and many are not familiar with X3D (in any form). There already is a proposed path that starts with A-Frame. The discussions as to what the declarative language will look like and how it will work will be extensive and probably contentious (at least at times). There are a lot of very large players (Google, especially) involved so it is important to resolve difficult issues first before people (and organizations) become too entrenched.

All of that was introduction to the main point: What do you (meaning the reader) think are the essential characteristics of X3D when running in an HTML page? I know that the answer is not everything because (1) as a standard, X3D does not run in the web page; (2) X3D supports multiple encodings, some of which are not HTML compatible (e.g., binary ones); (3) X3D has Profiles and Components and no browser supports all Profiles and Components. There are several other reasons that the answer is not everything, so that doesn't count.

I can think of several things that are important. I'm not sure if these are essential, or how to quantify or better state them

1) long-lasting (read and display 20 year old stuff)
2) extensible

Other items that might be important to people
3) modeling
4) feature-rich (at least in some areas)
5) platform-neutral
6) volume displays (not just surfaces)

I am looking for a collection of items that are so important to X3D that if removed, you would not have X3D, and when present you would recognize it as X3D or at least a close relative. I would expect the list to vary from person to person, but I also expect some characteristics to be present in many people's list. The items on your list are likely to reflect your personal interest and work with X3D and other 3D content.

--
Leonard Daly
3D Systems & Cloud Consultant
LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair
President, Daly Realism - Creating the Future

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Message: 3
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2016 16:15:29 +0100
From: Yves Piguet <yves.piguet at gmail.com<mailto:yves.piguet at gmail.com>>
To: doug sanden <highaspirations at hotmail.com<mailto:highaspirations at hotmail.com>>
Cc: X3D Public <x3d-public at web3d.org<mailto:x3d-public at web3d.org>>
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Essential Characteristics of X3D
Message-ID: <62DD5A7D-CED4-4F30-A8DF-807A183C7FA0 at gmail.com<mailto:62DD5A7D-CED4-4F30-A8DF-807A183C7FA0 at gmail.com>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Fine. By applying this strictly, per http://www.web3d.org/documents/specifications/19775-1/V3.3/Part01/concepts.html#ProfilesOverview <http://www.web3d.org/documents/specifications/19775-1/V3.3/Part01/concepts.html#ProfilesOverview> it's only a matter of registering new profiles, and writing files with the proper header and profile attribute or statement.

Unfortunately per http://www.web3d.org/documents/specifications/19775-1/V3.3/Part01/concepts.html#Componentprofilereg <http://www.web3d.org/documents/specifications/19775-1/V3.3/Part01/concepts.html#Componentprofilereg> the registration process is defined in ISO/IEC 9973, which costs 138 swiss francs for the standard itself. The effective registration costs, in term of work, time and money, is unknown. Hence the suggestion I made on Oct 13 2016 for reserved profile names available to everybody for custom extensions, in particular syntax extensions which cannot be emulated by externprotos or feature set reduction like in X3DOM.

That also explains my reluctance to register as an X3D member, even for free, to not be bound by 60 pages of legal terms I'm not comfortable with <http://www.web3d.org/about/documents/legal <http://www.web3d.org/about/documents/legal>>.

Yves

> On 19 Nov 2016, at 14:54, doug sanden <highaspirations at hotmail.com<mailto:highaspirations at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>
> If it conforms to a formal x3d specification by the web3d consortium and the specification was developed through web3d formal processes, and registered as an iso standard, then its x3d.
> Otherwise its not.
> -Doug

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Andreas Plesch
39 Barbara Rd.
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