[x3d-public] Purpose of X3D (Leonard Daly)

[Andreas Plesch]

Leonard focussed on what kind of 3d content x3d should be able to express
in the future: postprocessing shaders, all formats for which three.js
loaders are available ...

Orthogonal to content would be what 3d experience platforms x3d should be
able to support: web, desktop, vr, ar, non-interactive rendering ...

Another axis might be groups of people both on the application development
side and on the consumer side x3d should target: industry, science,
government, simple games, mobile, art...

Another dimension in a sense is community building, PR, outreach,
organizational structure around x3d: consortium, membership, openness ...

Not sure defining this space is helpful but identifying x3d's natural
position in it may help figuring out its purpose.

Would a narrower purpose help x3d's relevance? A-frame only targets VR on
the web, for example.

Another way to project into the future may be to explore the change in
purpose and use from vrml days to now. Is there such a change?

Substituting purpose with value, archival quality, stability, abstractness,
multiple encodings, multiple implementations come to mind which future x3d
versions need to keep in mind.

X3dom and Cobweb as npm packages may help with immediate popularity.

-Andreas

> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2016 10:21:51 -0700
> From: Leonard Daly <Leonard.Daly at realism.com>
> To: X3D WG <x3d at web3d.org>, X3D Public <x3d-public at web3d.org>
> Subject: [x3d-public] Purpose of X3D
> Message-ID: <6bf2188e-7b00-5a47-cf35-379c6a1d428c at realism.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed"
>
> 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" [http://www.web3d.org/x3d/what-x3d]. 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>   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.
>   2) X3D is for static models + appearance. X3D needs to expand to make
> full use of appearance shaders of all sorts.
>   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".
>   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.
>   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.
>
> Given that we have maybe 7 part time people (right now) where does X3D go?
>
> --
> *Leonard Daly*
> 3D Systems & Cloud Consultant
> LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair
> President, Daly Realism - /Creating the Future/
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