[x3d-public] Purpose of X3D
Leonard Daly
Leonard.Daly at realism.com
Wed Oct 12 09:16:45 PDT 2016
The message was originally sent to x3d-public and x3d. Based on the
responses, I think this conversation is best held on the Public mailing
list. If you don't receive the public announcements and wish to
participate, please let me know.
Leonard Daly
> I have been struggling with this topic for several months -- what is
> the purpose of X3D in the electronic ecosystem of the 21st century.
> The Consortium says that "X3D is a royalty-free open standards file
> format and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D
> scenes and objects using XML" [http://www.web3d.org/x3d/what-x3d]. As
> an ISO standard, X3D needs to have a long shelf-life, contain 3D
> models, animation, and interactivity; and communicate this within and
> between systems using XML. To do this effectively, it needs to stay
> current with industry practices while maintaining an ability to
> communicate information from the past.
>
> There is no question about X3D's handling of old data. To my knowledge
> there is no other 3D system that can display models, animation, and
> interaction from 15+ years ago. In the Internet age where half-life
> appears to be around 18 months, that is a remarkable achievement.
>
> X3D has not kept up with current practices in modeling, animation,
> rendering, or interaction. Work on the most recent update to X3D (V3.3
> - 2013) started back in 2009 and the document was mostly completed in
> 2010. The most advanced feature is 3D volume rendering. Work on
> particle systems and physics is several years before that. The
> standard for animation of any model is with bones and rigs - whether
> that model is a character, a tree, or a machine. All current renders
> use shaders (code that runs on a graphics card) to create highly
> realistic (or fantastic) surface appearance. Work on upgrading
> interaction to support mobile devices (including multi-touch),
> head-mounted-displays including game controllers, paddles, LEAP
> interfaces, and other specialized devices is just beginning.
>
> So back to my question -- what is X3D for? In 20 years time will the
> only content for X3D be 35 years old? Current content not created
> explicitly for X3D won't work because X3D does not support much more
> than static modeling.
>
> I have collected several choices. These are described below in more or
> less least to most complex (aka work). There are a lot of other
> options, more towards bottom of the list. If you have other
> contributions, please feel free to state so along with what you think
> it would take to get there from X3D V3.3.
>
> 1) X3D is for static models only (no texture). This is a very good
> match. There are just a few things that X3D doesn't handle and most of
> those are having to deal with interchange with other formats.
> 2) X3D is for static models + appearance. X3D needs to expand to make
> full use of appearance shaders of all sorts.
> 3) X3D is for models including animation. X3D needs to expand to
> include at least the current practice of skeletal structure plus
> rigging (attaching surface weights to various joints). This is not
> H-Anim, but broader as it includes models that are not even at all
> human, human-like, animals, or even "living".
> 4) X3D is for runtime display. X3D needs to include all major 3D
> formats. It needs to run AND use interface mechanisms of all major
> platform types, including phones/tablets, HMDs, desktops, etc. It
> needs to run in a browser: it needs to run as an app.
> 5) X3D is everything. Well, think about that for a moment. That means
> all of the above need to be done. It also needs to be widely adopted,
> and this needs to be completed in the next 12-18 months. It would
> probably take a team of 20-50 people working on a specification,
> implementations, conversion, integration applications, marketing, etc.
> to accomplish this. Advocates for this choice need to have a reality
> check.
>
> Given that we have maybe 7 part time people (right now) where does X3D go?
>
> --
> *Leonard Daly*
> 3D Systems & Cloud Consultant
> LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair
> President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
>
>
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--
*Leonard Daly*
3D Systems & Cloud Consultant
LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair
President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
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