RE: [xml-dev] When parsing speed matters (was Re: [xml-dev] No XML Binar

["Len Bullard" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

Go to www.web3d.org.  The language to look at is X3D.  VRML97 is still being
used widely, but the new tools are for X3D.  One of the good things to be
said about ISO standards is tools stability.  The tools for VRML97 from ten
years ago still work and the tools just coming out work with the output from
ten years ago.  There are some amazing freebies out there.  I blogged a
tutorial for one last weekend.

See http://lamammals.blogspot.com for 3D On The Cheap.

Someone is also using the Web3.0 meme for 3D On the Web on a blog out there.

Will X3D be the language for the GUI?  Possibly.  At the very least, it is
the best deal going for the content makers in terms of getting the value out
of the content for long lifecycles.  We learned the hard way what happens
when a closed proprietary vendor for 3D goes kerplunkt.  3D is not cheap to
own unless the language stays stable.  The faddists get a bad shock when
they try to make standards.  SL and WoW do well and we are glad for them
because of all of the publicity they generate, but making standard languages
is a different kind of beastie.  A standard language for real-time 3D has to
work in more application domains.  That is why X3D has an object model as
well as a markup language and multiple profiles.  The generalized profile
(full immersive) isn't workable in some applications.

There are people working on 3D search but that is a really infant domain.
Some are just working on 3D search engines for the 3D content itself.
Others are researching the concepts of 3D itself as a means to organize
searching.  One hint is that with real-time 3D, you can have very strong
situation cues via proximity sensors.  One of the ways that rendering is
optimized for the P2P large scale simulations is to use the proximity to
cull events (you don't care if a car door closes and slams if you are ten
miles away).  This works nicely for the people doing city sims for apps like
homeland security.  It is also a way to optimize for handhelds.  As I posted
here a few years ago, the strong similarity of this to the emergent effects
of topical vector indexing are only now being realized.

For people who want to thresh where the wheat is still wild, this is it.

len


From: James Fuller [mailto:james.fuller.2007@gmail.com] 

ok, you are starting to open my eyes to this....though people tend to
understand in incremental steps...the problem is that I cant 'see'
going from the 4 hours I just spent making a slightly complicated 2D
html search form validate and return results properly using html, to
coding a full blooded 3d GUI/interface....perhaps I dont have enough
imagination...though I certainely can imagine pain; and I tend to
avoid it.

so 'where are the baby steps'...is there some vestigal markup language
here to lead us to 3d...I doubt it...it will be some 'fad' that brings
us there first (we will call it.....web 3.0 e.g the 3d web...get it,
get it...ugg).

give me some pointers where a perl / sometimes java programmer would
go as a first stop and I will perhaps fill that last slot of time I
still have free for 2007 to 'learn all about 3d'.

cheers, Jim Fuller