[x3d-public] Minutes of X3D WG Meeting Wednesday 23rd August 2017 [Public Release]

Tue Sep 5 06:19:36 PDT 2017

Minutes for the X3D WG meeting held on Wednesday 23rd August 2017 at 0800
PST, 1600 BST 1500 UTC.

Attendees: Roy Walmsley, Leonard Daly, Don Brutzman, Dick Puk, Anita Havele,
Vince Marchetti (late arrival)

Apologies received: Vince Marchetti (for late arrival)

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A. Outstanding matters

1.	Update of X3D V4 HTML Integration Requirements page

Reference:
http://www.web3d.org/wiki/index.php/X3D_V4_HTML_Integration_Requirements

Scripting section from
http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2017-August/007288.html

Leonard reported that the addition of the scripting material was now
complete.

2.	Charters - H-Anim charter

BoD approved subject to comments.

H-Anim WG page update request from Myeong Won Lee (19th August)

Roy reported that, with Anita's supervision, the H-Anim draft charter had
been updated in accordance with the comments from the Board Meeting of 20th
February 2017. Leonard agreed to add the reference to the updated charter to
the H-Anim WG page.

Roy also reported that he had been asked by the the H-Anim WG co-chair
Myeong Won Lee to make minor revisions to the H-Anim WG page.

3.	Draft H-Anim CD2 texts

Status update

Roy reported that the updating of the Part 2 draft text has been completed,
and committed to the H-Anim repository on GitHub. This text has had a major
revision of the underlying HTML, and a small number of editorial
corrections. Dick reported that he had committed some changes to the Part 1
text. It was agreed that all the changes would be amalgamated before WG
discussion.

4.	X3DUrlObject - Mantis issue 1171

New draft text for clause 9.2.3 in ISO/IEC 19775-1

Roy reported that this is still outstanding.

5.	[Member-only material]

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B. Summary and Technical reports

Opportunity for anyone to make a short report on Web site, marketing,
communication, specification or technical matters that is not already on the
Agenda.

1.	Web3D Report to ISO

Reference:
http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2017-August/007295.html

See PDF attached above.

Update to specification relationships diagram at
http://2014.web3d.org/specifications/X3dSpecificationRelationships.2017Augus
t11.png

The updated draft specification relationships diagram was reviewed. The
changes concern the language bindings. Some work is being undertaken on
Python. It is also proposed that separate C++ and C#, plus additional C
language bindings are now produced. The motivation to split the C++ and C#
bindings is simply for clarity, since implementers generally have an
interest in one language only. Roy noted that the C++/C# binding was
currently being prepared as a combined document. However, it was always
understood that it might be separated into two, simply by duplicating the
combined document, and removal of one language from each document.

It was emphasized that this is still a draft change. The links are to draft
documents, the originals are still those publicized on the web site. No
further changes were proposed.

The Web3D Consortium report was reviewed. Don explained that X3D / HTML
integration was the primary focus. The second major focus, planned for V4.1
is Mixed and Augmented Reality (MAR). The Annex at the end of the report
details strategies for improvement of the Sound component.

The section of glTF was noted. It was explained that glTF essentially
contains a pre-defined scene, with a bit of run-time. The file is loaded,
and then exposed to animations. It was agreed that this needs to be
reviewed, especially as previous strategies were concerned with
ExternalGeometry and/or ExternalShape candidate nodes.

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C. Discussion Topics

1.	VRML to X3D translation

*	Background to proposal
*	Existing workflows
*	Suggested solutions

Vince explained that he anticipated the primary deliverable for this project
would be a Windows DLL. Its functionality would be the conversion between
VRML and X3D encoding, seamlessly converting either way. The need was
exemplified by the DICOM group that Vince attends. On September 11th DICOM
WG 17 will be discussing the potential inclusion of 3 file formats,
including X3D/VRML, putting forward a formal proposal to WG 6. This proposal
will be limited to three additional formats.

It was noted that the conversion process would need to handle the
complexities of the EAI / SAI as well.

Vince would like to cover the historic versions of VRML, as well as the
Classic VRML encoding for X3D. Don noted that the vast majority of VRML
files were the VRML 97 format. Vince wants to encourage transfer to X3D, and
not to go back to old versions, ideally going forwards to the XML encoding
of X3D.

One candidate solution put forward was XIOT, which Christophe has suggested
(see
<http://web3d.org/mailman/private/x3d_web3d.org/2017-August/006258.html>
http://web3d.org/mailman/private/x3d_web3d.org/2017-August/006258.html). Roy
reported that, according to their README file, XIOT was only concerned with
the XML and Compressed binary encodings.

Concern was expressed about the maintainability of code bases. Don noted
that parser generators, such as ANTLR (http://www.antlr.org/), were capable
of automatic generation of parsers from the grammar.

It was proposed that outputs would be X3D V3.3 XML encoding and VRML 97.
Inputs would be VRML, Classic VRML for X3D, and XML encoding for X3D. Node
coverage would start at the interchange profile, adding other components as
appropriate.

Applications supporting VRML include, for example, Maya, 3D Studio, etc.
Vince would like examples to test, preferably by September 1st. It was noted
that applications exporting ".wrl" files would likely not include scripts
and prototypes. It was thought that MeshLab (http://www.meshlab.net/)
supported both VRML and Classic VRML encoding for X3D.

Vince explained that the reason for proposing a Windows DLL was that,
provided there are no hardware or operating system dependencies, there
should be minimal compatibility issues as new versions of Windows are
released. 

Vince reported that he is considering submitting a contribution for approval
by the Web3D Consortium.

2.	X3D Object Model Rename

Reference: http://2014.web3d.org/specifications/X3DUOM.html

The proposal to rename the X3D Object Model was put forward. The change is
motivated by the inclusion of the notion of being unified, that is the
Object Model is working across multiple languages and approaches. The
reference link above, which is a draft, illustrates the coverage.

The only significant opposition was to the proposed acronym,  which is very
similar to X3DOM, see
http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2017-August/007386.html.

3.	Integration into HTML: DEF/USE

http://www.web3d.org/wiki/index.php/X3D_V4_HTML_Integration_Requirements#DEF
.2FUSE_in_HTML

Not discussed.

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D. Specification work, GitHub, and Mantis issues

None set

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E. Schedule review

Other topics for discussion not yet assigned are:

Investigate other 3D display capabilities: Glam and CSS.

*         GLAM see https://tparisi.github.io/glam/

Timo Sturm of Fraunhofer to talk about advanced materials. Also with Max
Limper re SRC/glTF interoperability, X3DOM support and repeatability.

X3D Features Missing list submitted by Michaelis Kamburelis, see
http://web3d.org/pipermail/x3d-public_web3d.org/2017-April/006347.html

X3D Integration into HTML: Events

August 30th - DEF/USE

September 6th -

September 13th -

September 20th -

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F. Date and time of next meeting

August 30th 2017 at 0800 PDT 1600 BST 1500 UTC

Roy Walmsley

X3D WG co-chair

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