[x3d-public] [x3dom-users] gitlab x3d resources group

[Andreas Plesch]

Hi Tony,

Thank you for your interest in x3dom and declarative 3d graphics. It
was a bit hard to tell from your exuberant message how successful you
were with representing an abstraction of a large knowledge system in
3d but I did find your youtube video which does show what appears to
be x3dom in action here: https://youtu.be/pC-GwA3zqd8?t=209

It is great that you found a way to construct a x3d based description
of the 3d representation of the envisioned knowledge structure. Thanks
for sharing that process. Let me add that visualizing abstract trees
and graphs is actually not a very uncommon use case for x3d.

Please feel free to use the mailing list if you have any x3dom
related, more technical questions or when you can share a nice 3d
model.

Good luck with the model demonstration at the conference and please go
ahead and do share your positive experience with x3dom there,

Andreas

On Tue, Jul 30, 2024 at 3:53 PM Tony Nolan <t.nolan at g3n1u5.com> wrote:
>
>
> G'day.
>
> I love the idea of making the gitlab, if it opens it up for other users, or different types of users to have access to this wonderful software as a gateway into the 3d world.
>
> But as an observation, it's instructions and supporting documents can be way too complex for simple programmers like me to easily find answers.
>
> This was my experience. I use x3dom to demonstrate my Reality of Everything model. I'm demonstrating it at an International Congress in late September, which will go out to Scientists, Leading Academics, Industry Leaders, of the advantages of using 3d perspectives to solve the world's problems.  In my keynote address I will be referencing X3Dom as the software of choice to represent the data in 3d.
>
> To achieve this, I had to discover D3, and then learn about X3Dom and how to insert it and make it talk to D3. Then using a translater program make my designs / basic components into Logo, and use the publish command to build the X3Dom code. They learning and striping away what you don't need to make the very basics, use a word document to hold the syntax, and Excel and Access to hold the variables values. I then mail merge this to get my code to put into my x3dom scripts.
>
> Then I have to resize / scale that section of objects, to get the final products.
>
> So my end result looks like a massive galaxy with solar systems, planets, moons, etc.  Where the position of everything represents the cause and effects and the interconnectedness of everything on everything. Where you can rotate, pull up points of view, recenter nodes of interest. Each object of rings, tables, interconnecting lines, has metadata attached and is displayed into the D3 containers.
>
> There are things I can't do like easily have lines that are selectable, so I have to distord objects to mimic rings. A ring is in effect a radar graph, a line from x,y,z to x1,y1,z1 where I have to make it a box and find a midpoint and adjust offsets and scales, etc.
>
> But in the end I have a model with upto 1 million zones of galaxies with planets, to up to 4 levels of quasi fractal radar plots, etc.
>
> The end result is using a knowledge classification scheme, fuzzy logic, and cause and effect representation I can model how the universe interconnects.
>
> This is what I am demonstrating at the end of September. One day I hope to get it into my oculus quest, and be able to fly between my data nodes, and visually explore my dataverse.
>
> But what I do and how I got to this point is not your standard pathway or traditional usage of X3Dom. But for data scientists and intelligence officers like me, where R and Python are the norm, X3Dom offers so much more freedom in 3d data representation than what those software applications can offer.
>
> Hence I love the idea of making X3Dom more available, but in this for dumb non programmers like me, where our industry / research lies in other disciplines can there be a sub stream for dummies like me to have simple basics and cross overs to other applications and disciplines.
>
> Regards
> Tony
>
> On Tue, 30 July 2024, 1:27 pm Andreas Plesch, <andreasplesch at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I would like to get input and feedback on creating a x3d-related group
>> under a personal gitlab account (perhaps mine).
>>
>> The background is that I am contemplating using gitlab for static site
>> hosting, for x3dom related material such as development releases,
>> documentation, an x3d viewer/in browser editor or a gltf viewer. These
>> materials are currently hosted under my personal github account at
>> andreasplesch.github.io but I would like to move away from using that.
>> Unfortunately, github only allows one account per user or organization
>> so I cannot in good faith just create another github account (say
>> x3dom-unoffiicial).
>>
>> Gitlab is similar to github but has more powerful project management
>> features even for the free tier. Gitlab also only allows one user per
>> account (I believe) but each account can have multiple roots or
>> "groups" which themselves then can contain multiple repos. For
>> example, I may create an x3dom-unofficial group under my account. If
>> used for static website hosting, a  corresponding url would be
>> x3dom-unofficial.gitlab.io from which then x3dom related materials
>> could be served. "x3dom-resources" could become another group. Gitlab
>> groups are collaborative with assigned owner, maintainer, developer,
>> user and other roles for invited collaborators.
>>
>> It is therefore natural to expand on this idea and think about a
>> larger "x3d-resources" or similar gitlab group, used as an option for
>> hosting of any x3d related resource. The main benefit would perhaps be
>> to have the option to share a common url for diverse resources. I
>> think this could be seen as complementary to web3d hosted material, so
>> maybe a "web3d-aux" group may be more appropriate. A
>> x3d-resources.gitlab.io site could then host x3dom related materials
>> under x3d-resources.gitlab.io/x3dom, for example. Other materials
>> could be served from similar urls. gitlab also supports forwarding
>> from a gitlab url to any other url. All gitlab repos can be automated
>> using ci runners (on gitlab servers). This is crucial since all
>> maintenance would need to be largely automatic.
>>
>> What are your thoughts on "x3d-*" groups on gitlab ? A potential
>> headache due to a potential for x3d confusion or a valuable option to
>> perhaps allow for larger participation ?
>>
>> Thanks for reading and apologies for the longer than anticipated message.
>>
>> -Andreas
>>
>> --
>> Andreas Plesch
>> Waltham, MA 02453
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> X3dom-users mailing list
>> X3dom-users at lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/x3dom-users



-- 
Andreas Plesch
Waltham, MA 02453