[X3D-Public] Fwd: Re: [X3D] X3D HTML5meetingdiscussions:Declarative 3D interest group at W3C

[GLG]

Hello Philipp,

I sense you're a bit exhausted with my "political" arguments
so I'll try to restrain myself and be more concrete,
although the more I read and think about your own posts on
XML3D, the more I feel you are just as heavily promoting
XML3D. So let's say we're even and get past that.

Moving on. One of the first things you said was that "making
the DOM a great declarative 3D scene graph should be our
main goal here." From this premise, it becomes apparent that
it is your contention that little if nothing of X3D should
be salvaged. You do acknowledge that some parts such as
synchronized events, data propagation and prototypes are
worth considering under different implementations,
emulations or simply imitated, but I can't help notice that
these parts are all but largely missing from XML3D. You
often point to incomplete or planned work, or to obscure
other items that are also not quite ready but expected to
work. Plus, we have barely touched the subjects of how
complexe, multi-layered and flexible PROTOS can be, and how
a simlulation would work across domains. In short, a lot of
conjectures, expectations and assumptions, to pretty much
start from scratch on the way to a 3D web. Not only would it
be necessary to assemble, debug, rebuild, upgrade a number
of parts to make everything work, we also have to contend
with the fact that there is no upgrade path in sight nor
even a hint of compatibility with existing standards. We can
transcode 3D objects but most if not all existing
interaction and behavior would be lost. In essence, this is
like going back to VRML1 without any real reason to believe
this would result in a wider acceptance of 3D on the web
(Let's not forget that VRML1 and VRML2 were very simple to
use). Isn't that a whole lot of wishful thinking? 

On the other hand, X3DOM based on WebGL is also being
proposed. WebGL which is really like an evolved subset of
OpenGL, the later which has always been the underlying
foundation of VRML and X3D (I don't have to tell you this
and I'm simplifying but not much). X3DOM itself is
recognizable X3D. So nothing is radically different here,
and existing artwork have a better chance of salvation. It
also does achieve the goal of rendering 3D in a web browser,
with the distinct advantage that an upgrade path to full
fledged X3D will remain available for as long as we need and
want it.

We are forced to generalize for the sake of brevity, but
what am I missing here Philipp. I find it extremely
difficult to get my head around to accepting XML3D. That is
without mentioning the potential loss of 14+ years of
development in interactive VRML/X3D. Not just my work, but
countless others. It is a very big step and a huge leap of
faith you are asking. And for what? Really the benefits are
not all that clear, and performance would suffer
tremendously IMO. I find it hard to imagine running a world
like Office Towers over Javascript and CSS in a web browser.
That just seems ludicrous. There has to be a better
solution. I really think 3D in a browser should be a gateway
step to more solid applications when it's time to run
processing intensive, memory gobbling worlds; at least for
some time until it all get sorted out.

I hope these were technical issues enough. Please do not
give up on me just yet. I am a reasonable person. As long I
am still listening, I can be convinced if I believe the
arguments presented. Perhaps you could talk about what parts
of XML3D you would be willing to remove in favor of X3DOM,
so that more people would like the outcome.

Lauren