View Full Version : Firefox gets an early taste of 3D Web standard
Charles Pegge
22-09-2009, 07:13
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-10357723-264.html
http://www.khronos.org/news/press/releases/khronos-webgl-initiative-hardware-accelerated-3d-graphics-internet/
Petr Schreiber
22-09-2009, 08:20
Thanks Charles,
I knew about WebGL being in the works, but I missed that it is already possible to test it within Firefox previews.
I hope this will be adopted more widely than VRML approach.
Charles Pegge
22-09-2009, 09:46
Hi Petr,
This is the successor to VRML:
http://www.web3d.org/
x3d is an XMLised vrml - the script is not at all beautiful to look at and more suited to a script generator (good role for thinBasic! ) rather than hand coding. But I wonder if this will be the higher level standard for WEBGL.
Charles
I'm actually excited quite a lot by this development. :D
In the past I've tried VRML & JOGL but didn't like them a lot because VRML needed a plugin & JOGL required me to write in Java which I find a little tedious.
Hopefully this will work & it'll be easy to implement & use.
Petr Schreiber
22-09-2009, 20:27
Hi Charles,
thanks for the link, I know there was some controversy about X3D format regarding its cruel license for use.
I didn't checked it since that time.
As Matthew, I would love to see native 3D embedding for HTML, like video tags which became standard now, 3D would be nice to have too.
Google has its O3D, then we have WebGL... there is lot of paths to follow.
Charles Pegge
22-09-2009, 22:13
I would prefer a Javascript-like notation - more VRML than x3d. It is much easier to read, and suits the interactive aspects better. I think most programmers will be more comfortable with it. The constructional side of these scripts is close to Opengl glLists with more formalised ways of expressing objects in terms of shape , material and further nested objects at various positions, scales and orientations. I used POV Ray for a while, a language for Ray-Tracing but now going the way of Latin. You could almost use it as a general purpose scripting language and it produced nice clean code but Opengl and the various interactive modellers have really displaced it. - I would no longer want to spend 3 months constructing a single still image.
Charles
Thanks Charles, always something new around the corner.
It just shows how these browser based systems will be dominating.
This of course is not scientific, but to give an idea how these things can change peoples lives:
Here in the United States, Apple's iPhone is sold exclusively at AT&T wireless with 2 years service contracts.
AT&T does not have the best network in terms of coverage and quality, that is usually awarded to Verizon wireless.
None the less, I had more friends and family on Verizon, then the next most was AT&T users.
This passed year, 5 and soon to be 6 friends and family have switched to AT&T because of the iPhone.
All of the ones that have switched have said it has truly effected their lives in a positive way, just as the introduction
of cell phones themselves changed our lives.
They are able to do more with their phones with its incredible user interface. I can really say all of them are ecstatic
with their switch. The iPhone has from what I heard very nice 3D. My friend played me this app he got, it is like a zen pool.
You move your finger over the screen and it looks like real water interacting with your finger. It looked mesmerizing even
over the webcam.
3D is a big part of our lives now, whether we notice it or not, but it is bringing incredible freshness to all forms of media
and entertainment. It is being used more and more each day in Medicine, Research of all sorts for data visualization.
So, it is really great that Google has its API and now this one appears for the browser.
I can see where maybe in a couple of years, the major modeling application developers might give their programs away for free
and then make money from allowing for almost realtime rendering to be made over the internet on their rendering farms.
The costs for rendering time could be offset with Advertising also. Perhaps you watch and interact with ads to show you are watching
them, and the cost of the renders is then free or at a great discount. This is stuff that is popping into my head after I looked at your links.
All very exciting stuff!
Charles Pegge
24-09-2009, 13:39
Google's o3d looks very impressive - If you have Chrome all you have to do is click for the plugin then afterwards close down all the Chrome browsers currently running. Then restart Chrome and the o3d will be available.
It is a javascript extension, so no special syntax required. Plenty of examples available too.
Charles
http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/
The island demo is a stand out to show the performance and of what can be done via the web. If O3D is a hint of what the new Google OS will bring,
it is will be great!
Michael Clease
25-09-2009, 08:00
Only thing I find is that the o3d plugin in firefox wants access the internet even when a broswer isnt open ??? it runs the googleupdate.exe
ErosOlmi
25-09-2009, 11:54
Chrome (like other Google free applications) continuously acts on the net without user acceptance. Most in inside EULA but usually people just click "Accept" so if you are using Chrome you already authorized the big G to get his nose in your private data. For those maniac (like me) about security and privacy I would not suggest to use Chrome at all unless you accept the fact that everything you do on the net (but also privately) is known by the big G.
Just (emmm :lol: ) Google/Bing/Yahoo around and search for "google chrome privacy"
seems this is why the network icon at the right of the taskbar are flashing continiously when i am using chrome; indicating sending and receiving info. this is not the case when i am using ie or firefox and they are idle.
i have deleted every occurences of googleUpdate.exe, i will see if this will reduce the flashing, when chrome is idle.
Michael Clease
25-09-2009, 15:29
I dont use chrome but i found it if you look it installs the google updater which my firewall is flagging every 20 minutes so I disabled google update and all is now quiet.
Charles Pegge
26-09-2009, 01:01
Very little on the web, or email for that matter is private.
Just when we thought we were free of divine surveillance, along comes Google. :D
I use chrome, it is just so fast compared to the rest of the browsers. Also on my smallest netbook, I can do more with the browser open than I could do before
with even firefox.
Charles Pegge
26-09-2009, 08:46
Apparently Chrome can run up to 10x faster than Explorer
Google has a very fast JavaScript - I wonder if it JIT compiles to get this performance.
Charles
Charles, I hadn't thought about it, but now that you wrote that... I have a feeling the New Chrome OS could probably be a virtual machine running on top of a minimal linux core with javascript just in time compiling... that could be how they plan to pull this magic show off?
While we're on the subject of JavaScript in Chrome. Google have made a plugin for Internet Explorer called Google Chrome Frame (http://code.google.com/chrome/chromeframe/) which speeds up JavaScript performance in IE.
Charles Pegge
27-09-2009, 09:01
An insight into Google's ethos:
Transparency Transparency, Transparency!
Eric Schmidt on technology innovation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2X7eadOcDw
(1 hour)
Thanks Charles, I really enjoyed that talk. A perfect way to cap off Sunday night.