[x3d-public] C/C++/C#---X3DCSAIL

[Don Brutzman]

John, thanks for posting.  There are a number of steps still to go, here is more information.

a. We currently 2/3 complete in our virtual 3-week-long annual meeting for ISO Standards Committee 24.  Ordinarily this is a dedicated 1-week face-to-face meeting, it is quite involved.

b. Dr. Myeong Won Lee of Suwon University has provided an update to the C/C++/C# language bindings for X3D that were first proposed two years ago.

[1]	Web3D Consortium Members are now considering C, C++ and C# language bindings for
	#X3D Graphics International Standard. Member value continues to grow, early adopters are advised to join!
	All community feedback is welcome too.
	https://twitter.com/Web3DConsortium/status/984257256270135296

c. The Scene Access Interface (SAI) language bindings are strictly defined by X3D specifications.  No proprietary technology or external-library dependencies are required.

[2]	Web3D Recommended Standards
	https://www.web3d.org/standards

d. We have captured all X3D scene-graph structure and typing in the X3D Unified Object Model (X3DUOM).

[3]	X3D Unified Object Model (X3DUOM)
	https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3DUOM.html

e. We have achieved autogeneration from X3DUOM to open-source implementations that support SAI for Java, Python and Turtle.  This occurs through careful consideration of design patterns to hold strictly designed data structures.  This does not include any form of rendering or platform-specific adaptations.

[4]	X3D Graphics Standards Relationships
	https://www.web3d.org/specifications/X3dSpecificationRelationships.png

f. A major benefit of autogeneration is that everything is exactly correct and can always track X3D4 refinements.

g. As you know, we hope to repeat this pattern for JavaScript.  Your experience with X3DJSONLD and JavaScript means that an autogenerated implementation oriented to Node.js is appealing.

h. Once implementations are stable, we will have to write corresponding X3D SAI specifications to match, likely next spring.

i. Professor Lee has also produced an example code library that should serve as a good basis for design templates.

j. We hope to begin tackling this new task after SIGGRAPH.

k. Since an unavoidable FAQ will be "How are the C/C++/C# implementations and specifications similar, and how are they different?" the X3D working group currently plans to work all three in tandem and submit all three specifications simultaneously.  This approach will maximize consistency and best-of-breed design patterns.

l. Clearly we will need multiple X3D experts who are each familiar with C, C++ and C# in order to achieve our goals of useful reusable open-source libraries and specifications.

m. This is not a debate about programming styles or preferences, rather how do we produce the most platform-neutral APIs that are widely reusable.

n. Resulting codebases will be hooked up to regression testing of the X3D Examples Archives.

[5]	X3D Resources, Examples: Scene Archives for X3D
	https://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/X3dResources.html#Examples

o. Success is measured by how these libraries encourage adoption of X3D by C/C++/C# applications, either open source or commercial. Original announcement follows.

[6]	[x3d] X3D C and C++ language bindings NWIPs [corrected copy]
	http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2018-April/008598.html

p. I'll be sending out an annual Web3D ISO liaison report to Web3D Consortium members in another week, once the SC24 meeting is complete.  This report will get released publicly sometime afterwards.

q. So the answer to most of your questions below is "same as before" with Java, Python, Turtle.

Hope this makes sense.  These are new big projects, adapting and repeating capabilities that we have already demonstrated three times.

Worthy mountains to climb that make X3D ever-more available.  Usually this is where business plans add a sentence saying, approximately, "total world domination to follow."  8)

Thanks everyone for considering the possibilities.  Have fun with X3D4!  8)


On 8/10/2020 5:10 PM, John Carlson wrote:
> 
> We're looking for some programmers to contribute to a project creating X3DCSAIL, a C/C++/C# version of X3DJSAIL.
> 
> My question is, how will X3DCSAIL be different from OpenInventor or Coin3D or FreeWRL?  Can these run headless?   Can we adapt one of these to run headless?  It looks like OpenInventor has a headless mode, but I'm not sure about the others.
> 
> How might we pursue this library?  What are the requirements?  Who are the customers?   Should we just create examples, and adopt one of the existing open source X3D browser implementations?  Is there a website describing the goals of this project?  Should I create one?
> 
> I have something written in C++ that reads in X3D JSON and writes out X3D XML, but that's pretty much a prototype at this stage--works with a couple of cases.  This opens up C++ X3D browser to the X3D JSON capabilities similar to how X3DJSONLD transformed X_ITE and X3DOM.
> 
> The cplusplus version in in <X3DJSONLD>/src/main/cplusplus/src
> 
> More testing is welcome!
> 
> We currently do not have a X3dToC.xslt, but would appreciate examples of C++ code that people would like to develop to use X3DCSAIL, so we can pattern the appropriate stylesheet for the X3DCSAIL library.
> 
> O can provide a C++ Serializer that will convert a DOM document to C++ using JavaScript code, but  I'm also wondering what kind of target I should hit, similar to what we might do with a stylesheet.
> 
> So we're just looking for C++ test cases at this point.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> John

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