<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">hi Leonard,<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">with the resurgence of interest in VR (mainly since the introduction of the Oculus Rift), I too have wondered about the place of X3D in this quickly evolving space.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">For VR developers the choices seem to be, to either use games engines, with sophisticated graphics capabilities, etc. (e.g. UE4 and Unity), or scene graph languages (X3D, Java3D, O3D, OSG, etc.).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">WebGL gives us access to the host GPU, which is a fabulous addition to our technology stack. However, it is not a ‘friendly' development language (not easily scalable, reusable, and not as accessible to non-programmers). Hence, declarative libraries such as three.js, babylon.js, etc. ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WebGL_frameworks" class="">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WebGL_frameworks</a> ) have emerged to address those shortcomings.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Then we have Mozilla's A Frame, which is a web-first entity-component-system framework for three.js. Designed to work with WebVR, which integrates VR hardware and systems.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, I hope to see X3D evolve to work with WebGL (let’s dispense with the need for these scene graph libraries) and WebVR (access to hardware and systems).</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I have never viewed X3D as a file format, for me it has always been a scene description language with additional features.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">X3D is a standard and must interoperate with other standards, e.g. glTF, COLLADA, mpeg. </div><div class="">The capabilities of X3D (extensibility + features) and the declarative nature of the language are what makes X3D attractive to develop in (and teach in my case).</div><div class="">The guarrentee of a standardised version, and interoperability with other standards are what makes X3D viable.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">my 2 cents …</div><div class="">cheers</div><div class="">rgds Dave</div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">__________________________<br class="">David Murphy<br class=""><br class="">Department of Computer Science<br class="">Room 1.77<br class="">Western Gateway Building<br class="">University College Cork<br class="">Ireland<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">e: <a href="mailto:d.murphy@cs.ucc.ie" class="">d.murphy@cs.ucc.ie</a><br class="">map: <a href="http://bit.ly/WGB_UCC" class="">http://bit.ly/WGB_UCC</a><br class="">w: <a href="http://multimedia.ucc.ie" class="">http://multimedia.ucc.ie</a><br class="">w: <a href="http://www.imclab.ucc.ie" class="">http://www.imclab.ucc.ie</a><br class="">w: <a href="http://www.cs.ucc.ie/staff/dmurphy.html" class="">http://www.cs.ucc.ie/staff/dmurphy.html</a><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""></div>
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<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 6 Oct 2016, at 18:21, Leonard Daly <<a href="mailto:Leonard.Daly@realism.com" class="">Leonard.Daly@realism.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class="">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class="">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" class=""><p class="">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"
[<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.web3d.org/x3d/what-x3d">http://www.web3d.org/x3d/what-x3d</a>]. 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.</p><p class="">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. <br class="">
</p><p class="">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.</p><p class="">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.</p><p class="">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.</p><p class=""> 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.<br class="">
2) X3D is for static models + appearance. X3D needs to expand to
make full use of appearance shaders of all sorts.<br class="">
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".<br class="">
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.<br class="">
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.</p><p class="">Given that we have maybe 7 part time people (right now) where
does X3D go?<br class="">
</p>
-- <br class="">
<div class="moz-signature"><font class=" serif tahoma,arial,helvetica san
" color="#333366">
<font size="+1" class=""><b class="">Leonard Daly</b></font><br class="">
3D Systems & Cloud Consultant<br class="">
LA ACM SIGGRAPH Chair<br class="">
President, Daly Realism - <i class="">Creating the Future</i>
</font></div>
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