[x3d-public] [X3D-Ecosystem] Reminder - X3D Ecosystem Meeting Feb 10, 2026 - 11am Eastern, 8am Pacific

Wed Feb 11 02:35:24 PST 2026

Note: My advise about schema yesterday, which was admittedly unclear (sorry!) was to "use X3D schema when talking with AI".

Explanation:

- In my experience with AI usage (Claude Code, Augment), if you want to get useful results -> it's beneficial to put unambiguous "validation step" to the goal you give to AI. Because AI is stupid, but it can iterate and eventually get to a result that satisfies the validation.

- Those who know me -> know that my opinion of AI is both "somewhat skeptic" and "somewhat enthusiastic" at the same time :) It's a complicated topic. The AI can make terrible stupid useless stuff. But it can also be useful and impressive in certain cases. Some of my guidelines about AI usage are on https://castle-engine.io/ai , and their short version is "use AI as a tool to make yourself smarter / faster; do not use AI to lose understanding (and/or control) and get dumber".

With regards to John work on .blxml, my recommendation would be use Claude Code in a directory with produced .blxml file and with the X3D schema (xsd) from https://www.web3d.org/specifications/ . The fact that files are large is not a problem -- we don't need AI to keep the .blxml in context as a whole. Try instructions like:

"""
Develop a conversion script to convert

- from provided .blxml file (this is an XML dump of the Blender data extracted using "bpy.data" API)

- to an X3D format (in the XML encoding).

The resulting X3D must be valid, confirming to the provided X3D schema in  x3d-4.0.xsd  . Optionally, use DTD from ...

Start by converting mesh and transformations, ignore animations and materials.
"""

(and in next steps, if it manages to do sthg useful, try to add stuff - animations, materials etc.)

Of course, I expect the script to be an unmaintainable hack. But it _may_ be a useful starting point to develop the real, maintainable and scalable, conversion application.

Regards,
Michalis

On Wednesday, February 11th, 2026 at 04:06, John Carlson via x3d-public <x3d-public at web3d.org> wrote:

> Here’s the Blender X3D import/export code. We might use this to generate X3D for potential mapping with blender XML, realizing this exporter is missing animation and HAnim:
>
> https://projects.blender.org/extensions/io_scene_x3d/src/branch/main/source
>
> You can also download the web3d extension/addon in blender and find the modifiable source on your system.
>
> I don’t know if shader graphs are present in this exporter, Vince or Michalis might know better.
>
> Lessons learned from import/export of Blender XML can feed into this effort.
>
> What I will be pursuing is an XML schema for Blender XML, and then a mapping, either using ElementTree or stylesheets for mapping Blender XML to and from X3D. I think this was Michalis’ suggestion. Attached is an initial schema, as generated by "Russian Doll" @ freeformatter.com XSD generator, and it's already missing things like enums, type enums, regex, etc. More attention with AI might fill in some missing enums! This was generated from skinned_animation_from_scratch.blxml (from .blend from Michalis).
>
> John
>
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 10:55 AM Don Brutzman via X3D-Ecosystem <x3d-ecosystem at web3d.org> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for an excellent meeting. Some inputs:
>>
>> - [x3d.py](https://pypi.org/project/x3d/) module published on PyPi
>> - [HAnim Medical examples](https://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/HumanoidAnimation/) now being updated, working on "broken arm" use case that has cast as a coveroid
>> - [X3D-Edit](https://www.web3d.org/x3d/tools/X3D-Edit/X3D-Edit.html) update soon, hopefully including feature for authors to reduce unnecessary precision of floating-point output to reduce file size.
>>
>> New topic of potential interest: create a new X3D node InlineGeometry to support direct loading of STL or PLY geometry files, simplifying the current import process. Something like
>>
>>> InlineGeometry : X3DGeometryNode, X3DUrlObject {
>>>   SFTime   [in,out] autoRefresh          0.0      [0,∞)
>>>   SFTime   [in,out] autoRefreshTimeLimit 3600.0   [0,∞)\
>>>   SFString [in,out] description          ""
>>>   SFBool   [in,out] load                 TRUE
>>>   SFNode   [in,out] metadata             NULL     [X3DMetadataObject]
>>>   MFString [in,out] url                  []       [URI]
>>> }
>>
>> For convenience, here were chat comments about blender API to xml:
>>
>>> Don 8:12 AM
>>
>>> Wondering what is the goal of the blendxml work? Blender has a .blend format already. Not understanding the connection to X3D.
>>>
>>> Michalis Kamburelis 8:13 AM
>>> As an introspection into Blender stuff it is useful -- to see what is there in Blender.
>>>
>>> Michalis Kamburelis 8:13 AM
>>> (that's how I see it at least)
>>>
>>> Don 8:17 AM
>>> OK, now wondering if we have a consistent mapping from Blender to X3D (for shapes at least). Is that written down online, or in the blender export source code somewhere? That seems necessary step for a corresponding effort that maps .blend files to X3D.
>>> Response on call: blendxml file is serializing blender API in python, then will need to explore how blender constructions can be turned into X3D.
>>>
>>> Don 8:27 AM
>>> If there are some basic examples and descriptions we might add to the X3D Examples Archives to show good practice. If it is "ugly" output, we might publish that along with a "cleaned up" version that shows what improvements are possible. This can help authors using Blender for X3D, and also future improvements to Blender exporters and Blender converters.
>>
>> all the best, Don
>> --
>> X3D Graphics, Maritime Robotics, Distributed Simulation
>> Relative Motion Consulting https://RelativeMotion.info
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 9, 2026 at 7:51 PM Bergstrom, Aaron via X3D-Ecosystem <x3d-ecosystem at web3d.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Reminder for X3D Ecosystem Meeting
>>>
>>> Date: Feb 10, 2026
>>>
>>> Time: 11am Eastern (US), 8am Pacific
>>>
>>> Location – Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86225731225?pwd=aUh3twfhNUaacXLyJolEof1tsZXSyA.1
>>>
>>> High Level Agenda
>>>
>>> -  Cesium Funding Award – Project Update
>>> -  Blender Topics
>>>
>>> -  Blender XML - John Carlson
>>> -  Discussion of Blender Armature
>>> -  UND Updates
>>>
>>> -  RawKee Python Edition for Maya - Current Status
>>>
>>> -  UND Asset Library - Github - MIT License
>>>
>>> -  https://github.com/und-dream-lab/assets
>>> -  Other Topics – As suggested in meeting
>>>
>>> Aaron
>>>
>>> --
>>> X3D-Ecosystem mailing list
>>> X3D-Ecosystem at web3d.org
>>> http://web3d.org/mailman/listinfo/x3d-ecosystem_web3d.org
>>
>> --
>> X3D-Ecosystem mailing list
>> X3D-Ecosystem at web3d.org
>> http://web3d.org/mailman/listinfo/x3d-ecosystem_web3d.org
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