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<p>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"
[<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.web3d.org/x3d/what-x3d">http://www.web3d.org/x3d/what-x3d</a>]. 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.</p>
<p>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. <br>
</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p> 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.<br>
2) X3D is for static models + appearance. X3D needs to expand to
make full use of appearance shaders of all sorts.<br>
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".<br>
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.<br>
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.</p>
<p>Given that we have maybe 7 part time people (right now) where
does X3D go?<br>
</p>
-- <br>
<div class="moz-signature"><font class="tahoma,arial,helvetica san
serif" color="#333366">
<font size="+1"><b>Leonard Daly</b></font><br>
3D Systems & Cloud Consultant<br>
LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair<br>
President, Daly Realism - <i>Creating the Future</i>
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