[x3d-public] X3D Working Group meeting minutes, 27 July 2018: ISO, SIGGRAPH, Python, LocalFog, regexes

[Don Brutzman]

Attendees: Dick Puk, Don Brutzman, Anita Havele.  Regrets from Vince Marchetti.

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1. We reviewed the recently refreshed Web3D Events announcement for SIGGRAPH 2018.  This includes a BoF list.

	http://www.web3d.org/event/siggraph-2018

Cartographic Visualization (Carto) BoF 	
Mon (13 Aug) 12:00 to 13:30, npolys brutzman
ACM SIGGRAPH Theater, West Building, Room 102, Vancouver Convention Centre
The ACM SIGGRAPH Cartographic Visualization (Carto) session explores how viewpoints and techniques from the computer graphics community can be effectively applied to cartographic and spatial data sets.

Web3D Korea Chapter Standardization Meeting 	
Mon (13 Aug) 15:00 to 17:00, mwlee
Gallery Board Room, Pan Pacific Hotel
X3D progress and plans for mixed augmented reality, humanoid animation, C++/C# language bindings, and physical sensors. New participants are welcome! 환영합니다

Design Printing and Scanning: Web3D Makers Making More! 	
Wed (15 Aug) 11:00 to 12:30, brutzman npolys havele
West Building, Room 116-117, Vancouver Convention Centre
3D-CAD models reach beyond the screen to physical objects. Intelligent X3D applications link 3D printing and scanning. How can we integrate 3D publishing further in new devices and authoring tool chains.

Mobile VR/AR Meetup
Wed (15 Aug) 12:00 to 13:00, mitch williams
East Building, Room 12, Vancouver Convention Centre
Come share your VR creations, inquiries, and ideas. Bring your headsets, demos, and questions. Whether you are experienced or getting started, come network and collaborate with the VR development community.

WebVR Evolution for a Larger Web 	
Wed (15 Aug) 12:30 to 14:00, brutzman npolys havele
West Building, Room 116-117, Vancouver Convention Centre
Upcoming X3D Specification improvements add full Web integration, Physically Based Rending, and VR/AR/Mixed Reality. What other capabilities does the SIGGRAPH community need for 3D publishing on the Web?

Scaling Up 3D Medical Applications for People Everywhere 	
Wed (15 Aug) 14:00 to 15:30, npolys havele brutzman
West Building, Room 116-117, Vancouver Convention Centre, npolys
Data-harmonization efforts by Web3D, DICOM and HL7 are working to support medical visualization, analytics, and electronic publication medical records. What else is needed to make 3D capabilities available to support everyone?

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2. We reviewed and refreshed last week's work:

	X3D Python Language Binding
	http://www.web3d.org/wiki/index.php/X3D_Python_Language_Binding

We sent an inquiry to Masaki Aono about his prior work in this area, and expect to see him in 2 weeks at the annual ISO SC24 meeting.

Continued improvements welcome, looks an excellent plan is emerging.

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3. Dick looked at EcmaScript language binding for X3D.  We have an editors draft update as of about 2 years ago.  He will check it into Github specification repository.

During the ISO meetings we will be taking a quick assessment review of two draft documents, JSON file encoding and X3D EcmaScript language binding.

Our expectation is that we will be able to suggest a future work schedule to proceed on both documents together, to be discussed after SIGGRAPH.

Web3D Consortium members are welcome to request access to Web3D Consortium draft specifications on github.

	https://github.com/Web3DConsortium

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4. LocalFog work.  Sungmin Kwon and I have been considering how to use LocalFog for

24.4.4 LocalFog
http://www.web3d.org/documents/specifications/19775-1/V3.3/Part01/components/enveffects.html#LocalFog

states:
"The LocalFog node provides a way to simulate atmospheric effects by blending objects with the colour specified by the color field based on the distances of the various objects from the viewer."

This is incorrect.  LocalFog intensity doesn't consider the viewer distance.  Rather the next sentence pertains:
"The distances are calculated in the coordinate space of the LocalFog node."

Recommended correction: change "from the viewer" to something like "from the local center of the LocalFog node's transformation heirarchy".

Also
"The visibilityRange field specifies the distance in metres (in the local coordinate system)"

should be
"The visibilityRange field specifies the distance in base length units (in the local coordinate system)"

Subject to discussion, will enter Mantis issue to track this.

Sungmin has prepared a test scene for evaluating browsers.  We debated where to  put it; following recent example of Design Printing Scanning group, it seems best to include with similar tests for Fog node.

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/ConformanceNist
http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/ConformanceNist/Miscellaneous/LocalFog
http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/ConformanceNist/Miscellaneous/LocalFog/LocalFogEffectsTestIndex.html

Multiple viewpoints using InstantReality are provided.  There is also a presentation:

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/ConformanceNist/Miscellaneous/LocalFog/LocalFogEffectsPresentation.pdf or
http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/ConformanceNist/Miscellaneous/LocalFog/LocalFogEffectsPresentation.pptx

We hope that this helps improve specification clarity and produce consistent implementations.

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5. Additional development work: regexes.

Work continue to good effect on X3D Regular Expressions (regexes), with very helpful contributions by John Carlson and Andreas Plesch.  In particular:
- handling whitespace (and comma delimiters) flexibly,
- design sub-patterns to ensure consistency across all X3D datatypes,
- unit testing of both good and bad values, in Java using JSAIL and online using regex101.com

	X3D Regular Expressions (regexes)
	http://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3dRegularExpressions.html

More progress to follow.  Regexes have complete expressive power and essentially provide a precise programming language to describe grammars.  This in-depth effort is a worthwhile addition to ensure X3D scene correctness in all language bindings and file encodings.

	X3D Resources: Quality Assurance (QA)
	http://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3dRegularExpressions.html

Expecting to publish updates to all of the X3D XML Schemas, DTDs and X3D Unified Object Model (X3DUOM) prior to SIGGRAPH.

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6. Meeting plans.

Friday 3 August: no meeting (Don and Dick en route).

Friday 10 August: no meeting (ISO meeting conclusion).

Friday 17 August: post-SIGGRAPH initial discussion, list of new technical issues from conference.

As ever, member teleconference information is at

     Web3D Teleconference Information
     http://www.web3d.org/member/teleconference-information

If someone needs to join as an invited expert for some call(s), please just ask to get the connection information.

If you want to join Web3D Consortium and support these important efforts, please do.  You can have excellent influence in support of your interests.

     Join the Web3D Consortium
     http://www.web3d.org/join

Comments and feedback are always welcome, this is how we all progress together.

Thanks for another superb meeting today.  Have fun with X3D!  8)
  
all the best, Don
-- 
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       brutzman at nps.edu
Watkins 270,  MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA   +1.831.656.2149
X3D graphics, virtual worlds, navy robotics http://faculty.nps.edu/brutzman