This is the first of a multi-part post that examines the issues preventing easy integration of X3D into DOM. This post lists the specific issues and provides some background. It links to other posts that discuss the issue in more detail and in some cases provide possible solutions.
Advances in hardware, system software, and browsers have created consumer-grade platforms to display 3D and VR at price points that the nearly affordable world-wide. X3D needs to step up to meet these capabilities and provide the right service to developers and consumers. The following is a list of written or planned posts on the topic of X3Dng listed in order of best reading. Articles and links will be updated as they become available.
The initial version of Basx3DTM 3D the HTML Way has been released. This version is pre-alpha and is released to assist in the development of the next release of X3D V4. Basx3DTM is a 3D scene builder using declarative 3D nodes.
XSeen V0.7rc1 has just been released.
This set of examples will use the first scene. It is real simple (in terms of elements), but it is sufficient to illustrate the projection issues. For the purposes of this discussion assume that the display screen is sufficiently large to show everything that is desired to be displayed. Also assume that the rendering software does not enlarge the displayed scene to fit the screen.
In the marketplace of file formats for 3D content, X3D has a tremendous advantage over all other formats by nature of its ISO Standardization, openness, and compatibility over 20 years. There are other formats that meet one or more of these features, including OBJ and FBX; however, X3D has not been a dominant or even significant player in the marketplace.
Recently there has been discussion about the suitability of various 3D formats as an archive format, especially for models. There are formats that have been around a long time (OBJ, FBX, X3D), those that are optimized for delivery (glTF), those that are widely used in existing tool chains (OBJ and FBX), plus a number of other criteria and formats including tool-specific (Blender, Maya, etc.). The most widely used format is FBX and any format that seeks to supplant it needs to offer at least as much capability as that one.
WIth 3D/VR becomming practical in the web browser there are a lot of questions concerning the right format to use for various situations. This post looks at two model formats - X3D and glTF. Both formats support full geometric surface modeling, but there are differences between these formats for some specific areas.
This is part of a multi-part post that explores some ideas for integrating X3D into HTML5 DOM. It explores various options and their implications. The primary post is "Integrating X3D into DOM - Issues".
