Getting Started with X3D

Welcome to the world of real-time, interactive Web 3D!

Introduction

Extensible 3D (X3D) is a royalty-free, platform-independent, open-standard file format specification and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D scenes and objects on the Web. X3D is an ISO/IEC internationally-ratified standard. New to X3D, learn more at WebX3D.org

X3D has a rich set of componentized features that can be tailored for use in engineering and scientific visualization, CAD and architecture, medical visualization, training and simulation, multimedia, entertainment, education, and more. 

X3D allows you to develop interactive 3D graphics in browser without actually programming in WebGL. It's perfect for beginning graphics programmers to start creating graphics with little knowledge of WebGL. It's very much like learning HTML/CSS. What is X3D?

How to view 3D content: 

Many X3D Example Archives are listed in the X3D Resources that demonstrate exactly how X3D nodes and scenes work. 

Web3D YouTube Channel shows demonstrations of X3D and related standards. These are helpful resources that help "tell the story" in a compelling manner. X3D has broad adoption here are some of our member case studies.

See our X3D Workflows Page to Develop and Deploy X3D. If you already have X3D content, see how to Display X3D.

X3D Tutorials

If you are ready to build and publish your own Interactive Web3D worlds, you will need a couple of things to get started before viewing your first X3D environment:

1. A X3D Browser based Viewers, with WebGL enabled native solution without plug-ins

2. and/or a full-featured X3D rendering engine installed on your machine as a plug-in

Converters

Engines

  •  Castle Game Engine - A 3D and 2D game engine. Cross-platform (desktop, mobile, console). Powerful visual editor. Support for glTF, X3D, Spine and more. Fast clean code using modern Pascal. Free and open-source....

X3D Member Examples