[x3d-public] Current X3D adoption

Wed Dec 28 13:24:06 PST 2016

Hello Maxim,

I mentioned some more comments. Here are my humble musings. Hopefully there are not to many omissions. Corrections are welcome.

Looking at the provided link it seems that the standards committee is interested in various technologies. The 3D Body Scanning Technologies conference link gives a synopsis. The standardization goals seem to focus on fashion, health and wellness. Industry is invited. I assume that a standard would be proposed that would allow for the integration of various scanning, kinematics, modelling and simulation technologies. 

I suggest that you look up the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality conference.[ MMVR]. This has lots of topics of interest, especially from the medical simulation field. Also you can look at just about and simulation conference. The Summersim conference [www.scs.org] generally has a medical simulation track with telemedicine and simulation use cases.

The best course is to accept Joe Williams invitation. Also look into the Medical and Mixed Augmented Reality groups.

So, the core 3-D XML for “Virtual People” is being addressed. The Web3D consortium has lots of industry participation.

So, you need a 3-D file format. Then you need a viewer. Then you need 3-D Modeling and animation systems that export to the chosen format.

The Viewer: The current crop of VR/MR/AR activity is geared towards commercial competition. Occulus, Google, Sony, Microsoft. That means competing and most likely non interoperable proprietary file formats, API’s and Headset hardware drivers. It is irrelevant whether this is good or bad. That means that the potential viewers are most likely to be inherently non-interoperable. If one industry entity or consortium in the headset market dominates then the viewer standards will have to support the dominant hardware/software which will most likely force a proprietary file format to be the standard file format.

If the viewer is web based and not headset then WebGL is possible. The Web3D consortium may have a WebGL AR solution.

3-D Modeling and Animation: I think that in general the normal dominant formats are STL, OBJ, 3DS, DXF/DWG, VRML97 ( since we are in the X3D mailing list …J )with FBX, IGES,STEP, LWO and Collada (game format) thrown in. But most modeling and animation systems already support import or export or both with respect to these formats. Plus others of course since applications have their target domains. So, really, the only issue is how well the systems import or export these file formats so that your VR/AR/MR “world” does not crash the viewer.

3-D File formats: VRML97/X3D is an ISO standard. IGES is an ANSI/ASME/Mil-STD. STL is proprietary but really is widely adopted. STEP is an ISO standard. All the others are widely adopted proprietary file formats.

So,

1)      VRML97/X3D plus working group extensions related to bodies is a royalty free ISO standard. I am assuming that is why it is being looked at for a core component of any IEEE body standard.

2)      IEEE is trying to generate VR and AR standards which is why the original poster started this thread.

3)      3-D scanners tend to output STL or VRML97 or OBJ. Others of course but I suspect that these are at least 3 important ones, especially if medical objects are printed. My body was scanned at SIGGRAPH last august and I got STL and OBJ files.

4)      All Modeling and Animation systems pay attention to a core suite of formats but they REALLY WANT YOU TO USE THEIR DEFAULT FILE FORMAT. If you are a conspiracy theorist that translates into “are you having trouble converting or importing or exporting or viewing – why not use out file format and our viewer”.

5)      If the IEES body standard has VRML97/X3D plus STL and OBJ compatibility at a minimum with suggested compatibility with the others listed above [3DS, DXF/DWG, IGES, STEP and Collada] then starting the standardization process may have minimal risks.

6)      Also, once you have the creation and viewing standards you need to incorporate some sort of dominant simulation standard for distributed simulation. You can try SISO [www.sisostds.org] or EUROSIS.

7)      DIS-Java-VRML (which already exists) anyone…J

8)      The simulation community just can’t seem to kill off DIS. But HLA is one future just like X3D is one future of VRML97.

Good luck in your standards endeavors.

John

From: x3d-public [mailto:x3d-public-bounces at web3d.org] On Behalf Of Maxim Fedyukov
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2016 6:52 AM
To: Vincent Marchetti; X3D Graphics public mailing list; doug sanden
Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Current X3D adoption

Vincent, Doug, thank you for your opinions and comments.

> Maxim,

> https://standards.ieee.org/develop/indconn/3d/bodyprocessing.html

very interesting.
> Q. do you have a list of technical requirements for body processing?
> -Doug

The current stage is exactly the formation of a list of technical requirements for 3D body processing. So I'm gathering the proposition with every option, current pros and contras and the future projections, as the first standard publishing is planned for Q4 2017.

What puzzles me even more is the widespread adoption of VRML, even in quite new software, which appeared much later than 2005, but still they have chosen to aim their efforts at adding the support for VRML and/or VRML2, but not X3D. Do you have an understanding or opinion why this happens?

Best regards,
Maxim Fedyukov, PhD
CEO, Texel Inc.
+7.910.403.27.01
max at texel.graphics

-------- Original message --------

From: Vincent Marchetti <vmarchetti at kshell.com> 

Date: 12/27/16 16:34 (GMT+03:00) 

To: Maxim Fedyukov <max at texel.graphics>, X3D Graphics public mailing list <x3d-public at web3d.org> 

Subject: Re: [x3d-public] Current X3D adoption 

Maxim

The question as to why a software application, particularly a commercial or closed product, chooses to support an exchange or export format is best answered by those who directly manage the development of those applications. I am sure it involves sales and business development objectives as much or more than direct technical merit. In the open source and third-party spheres X3D is widely supported. Direct X3D support by open source packages includes the two you mentioned (Blender, Meshlab), as well as by Open Cascade,VTK, and Cura 3D Printing software. There are also a variety of commercial and open source translation products that provide a route from the native formats of popular commercial products into X3D. There is a comprehensive list of applications at http://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/X3dResources.html#Conversions and the Web3D Consortium website at http://www.web3d.org has additional slide sets and presentations detailing workflows to create X3D content from common commercial and open source software.

Vince Marchetti
KShell Analysis & Web3D Consortium

> On Dec 27, 2016, at 6:39 AM, Maxim Fedyukov <max at texel.graphics> wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I'm writing you as the file format subteam lead of IEEE 3D Body Processing
> working group
> (https://standards.ieee.org/develop/indconn/3d/bodyprocessing.html).
> Exploring the formats to include into standard recommendations, I see that
> X3D seems to be one of the best candidates. But the main concern here is
> that X3D has not received a wide acceptance of notable software applications
> besides Blender and MeshLab. Why is it so?
> 
> Best regards,
> Maxim Fedyukov, PhD
> CEO, Texel Inc.
> +7.910.403.27.01
> max at texel.graphics
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> x3d-public mailing list
> x3d-public at web3d.org
> http://web3d.org/mailman/listinfo/x3d-public_web3d.org

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