Let's make Google adopt VRML

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Please read:

http://news.hiperia3d.com/2009/04/another-standard-for-web-3d-googl...

I have submitted the suggestion to make O3D adopt VRML or X3D in classical vrml encoding. The option is getting votes.

PLEASE GO THERE AND VOTE! Let's make VRML and X3D be supported by O3D!

Just login in Google account and go to:

http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=41eb1

And vote the option:

"Create support for VRML or X3D in classical VRML syntax because it's an already existing standard for web3D and it's easy for everyone"

[tutancamon]

http://moderator.appspot.com/#8/e=41eb1:

arickserver from Europe / Romania / Bucharest said:

"Jordi, Doctor, Bruce, pyth7, has right. At the best popular browser like GOOGLE, is necesary to be used the best popular WEB3D language; and this language is ofcuorse V.R.M.L."

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

I think we should stop sending different options and just vote the existing ones.

[GiL_TheB]

O3D is not "another standard", it is a 3D engine you can pilot with javascript, as far as I know javascript is allready a standard, and O3D have no file support at all so you can use the one you want.

If you want VRML/X3D support, create your own javascript wrappers ...

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Yes, agree. But they have a parallel proposal to create a file format that may become a standard, and we are proposing what you say: that they adopt X3D as that language, and they create support for it.

[Rick Kimball]

Where is the compelling X3D content that would warrant Google to support X3D?
Most of the outstanding content I have seen is done using VRML using BS Contact
extensions.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Most of what all of us have seen in Bxx worlds has not much specific code, except avatars, some shared event, etc.

And there is other content:

http://www.regmurcia.com/servlet/s.Sl?sit=c,452,m,1584&r=ReP-18...

Also see Erny's works, or Fersen's... Most of what you see is just plain vrml.

I agree that we all are tired of seeing colored boxes and spheres, but some people make real jewels of art.

And much better than the demos of most commercial products out there.

It is ok if every business wants to do a standard in their preferred language, having MANY standards is good. What most of us don't like is that from time to time some enterprise appears and announces this as if there was no previous standard.

VRML and X3D are standarized as they followed a complex process to build a solid structure and be approved by ISO. That is one thing.

The other is that when one wants it, you can create a technology and expect that it is adopted by a huge number of people. That is a de-facto standard, like for example, Flash, or OpenSim.

But creating something new and saying "this will be the standard, because all people will use this with preference to anything else" is just hype.

[Doctor]

I personally don't feel that it is a good thing to have too many web3d formats out there competing against each other. This leads to unnecessary duplication of efforts, confusion about which format has better support than others or better features, etc. If the 3D community all agreed to put there efforts into supporting and developing one or two open 3D standards then we would be better off in the long run. Even better would be if the two evolving standards had different philosophies/goals in mind for their format, so that the two "open standards" overlap a lot but are not truely in competition.

It is in this respect that I suggested VRML/X3D (the ISO choice for an open web 3D format) as the format of choice for Google's project (and others), rather than developing yet another web3d format or leaving the file parsing engine completely open for people to make their own in javascript. That is, if it were up to me I would put my support and development focus on VRML/X3D as the preferred format and offer javascript only as a secondary option for 3rd parties to write importers (and, of course, as the principle scripting language of the Script node in VRML and X3D).

If Google were to offer no prefeered format and leave it up to the users to create their own 3D format parsers (in javascript) for the Google 3D viewer, then I anticipate a nightmare of hundreds or thousands of 3D formats and dialects/variations of formats (possibly a different variation for every 3D content creator that has javascript experience, or even worse -- a different format variation for every world). The users quite possibly would have to download and install a new 3D format parser for every new world or set of worlds (a worst case scenario, I admit).

On the other hand, if Google's policy was to encourage all content creators to convert their final creations from their favorite working format into one open standard (or one of two open standards) when they are ready to publish their work for the world to see, then I think the end user would be much better off. The content creators would also be much better off if they could discuss technical issues within one of two large communities/forums, rather than one of hundreds of small island communities.

Perhaps I am just out to lunch with these opinions, or perhaps I do not really understand what Google is intending to do with their 3D application. Any comments?

[Doctor]

Has anyone seen the Jade Dragon and Cathedral examples provided on the download page for Bitmanagement Contact?
I think they are quite convincing examples of the power and quality of VRML/X3D content.

The fact that there are extension nodes provided by Bitmanagement Software is (in my opinion) a great selling point for the VRML/X3D formats. That is, it demonstrates that the language has a very powerful mechanism for extension (i.e. the PROTO/EXTERNPROTO and Script Node facilities) that does not entail breaking away from the strict language specification. New node types and behaviors can be added to an X3D world and viewed by everyone with a VRML/X3D plugin, without them having to install a new plugin or importer/converter tool. And, at the same time, the standard nodes of VRML/X3D are of a fairly high language abstraction (compared with just coding 3D directly in java applets or javascript scriptlets, for instance) and so the files of web3d content can be relatively compact.

Perhaps we would see more exceptional X3D content if there were better X3D modelling tools that were designed with optimized 3D WEB content in mind, rather than CAD programs, 3D animation programs, and raytracers that just add (as an afterthought) exporters of rudimentary & unoptimized 3D web content.

Just another two cents thrown into this discussion by me to keep people talking. I guess I feel like rambling tonight (see last message and this one). lol

[fabricator]

Doctor said:

Has anyone seen the Jade Dragon and Cathedral examples provided on the download page for Bitmanagement Contact?
I think they are quite convincing examples of the power and quality of VRML/X3D content.

Perhaps we would see more exceptional X3D content if there were better X3D modelling tools that were designed with optimized 3D WEB content in mind, rather than CAD programs, 3D animation programs, and raytracers that just add (as an afterthought) exporters of rudimentary & unoptimized 3D web content.

Good point, the material export out of 3ds max for example is poor, what you see in 3d is not the material that ends up in vrml. There is a shader export option in the Bitmanagement version of the exporter, I have to play with that sometime.

[Larry Rosenthal]

youre kidding? right?

wheres x3d content? wheres the x3d business proposition from any presentation system..;)

[Doctor]

Larry Rosenthal said:

youre kidding? right?

wheres x3d content? wheres the x3d business proposition from any presentation system..;)

Could you elaborate a little more? My apologies, but I do not immediately see what was said in the discussion that might make you think we are kidding. Do you feel that the X3D file format is not suitable for Google to adopt (or possibly not by other major web3d projects)? If so, then why do you feel that way?

Also, what do you mean by the question "Where's the X3D business proposition from any presentation system?"?

I may just be misunderstanding your posting.

[Hiperia3D - Jordi R Cardona]

Larry Rosenthal said:

youre kidding? right?

wheres x3d content? wheres the x3d business proposition from any presentation system..;)

It is here:
http://www.web3d.org/casestudies/

Check and you'll see. The problem with X3D is that it's not too popular because it is not used on games or virtual worlds too much, but it is largely used in science, architecture, research, augmented and virtual reality...

So we are not kidding at all. Also see the last press release of Web3D.org, that seems motivated because of all this discussion about the standard:

"3D Content for a Lifetime: The 14th Annual Web3D Symposium Celebrates Milestone of Innovation and Durability

The fourteenth annual International Web3D Symposium will showcase X3D, the only open, royalty-free and ISO-certified technology available today for interactive 3D graphics on the World Wide Web. "

By the way, our proposition to Google is the most voted one now, with 66 votes.