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Downloads for any file type, 3D, 2D or even HTML are as
good as your pipes are wide and the bitmaps are sparse.
XML is worse than VRML97 in that respect (verbosity)
but so far no one is really complaining about that anymore.
The Gagarin example proves what can be done with basic
web tech and design. Children latch on to worlds like
that and teachers can use them. One should respect what
our Russian colleagues do because PG has hung in there and
made both good worlds and a good viewer in a period when
the money wasn't that good. They don't get grants. They
work long long hours.
The Flux viewer is good. The Cortona and Contact viewers are
good. Flux and Contact can display X3D. There isn't much
X3D/XML out there although the viewers mentioned can display
VRML97 as well. Until XML enabled tools are used for 3D
widely, I don't expect to see much XML 3D. Because the
standard is still in draft and the viewers just became
available this spring, it is a little early. As I said,
I wrote an article for XML.COM that has some examples
of some very good looking worlds. There is a BMW model
that competes with a high gloss magazine photo and is still
3D. Quality ranges from the simplest worlds to some very
professional ones. The telling is in the technique.
Each of the vendors and the open source creators of viewers
maintain sites for filing bug reports. Otherwise, a lot of
VRML and X3D come down to the talent of the artist/programmer.
I've seen some VRML that will compete with anything from
CAD. First rank professional tools can export VRML. So
whatever your issues are, you should probably do some
serious research on finding good examples because they
do exist.
len
-----Original Message-----
From: James Landrum [mailto:james.landrum@ndsu.nodak.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 4:31 PM
To: Bullard, Claude L (Len)
Cc: 'Bill Kearney'; Rick Jelliffe; XML Developers List
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Why 3D Redux?
Thanks Len,
Interestingly, the Gagarin demo points to relevant issues about 3D
attractiveness and Internet usage. Connectivity, Download time, etc., at
parallelgraphics is pretty poor, regardless of fact I already have
Cortona on my system, and despite the relatively small file size (3.4.
MB) of the demo, and the Internet2 (i2) pipe through which I access the
Web. We are working on compression and decimation utilities and
applications to redress bandwidth issues, and thus improve realtime
access to 3D content, but that isn't done yet. Parallelgraphics also
displays VRML files not X3D, and although it has been mentioned, I
haven't seen a really good X3D viewer yet, but then again, I have never
seen a really good VRML viewer either (other than the NEW Java 3D Viewer
in DANA-WH, an even newer version of which will be available in the
fall).
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