Comments for 3D Web Plugins - The Next Trend? (http://www.insideria.com/2009/04/3d-web-plugins---the-next-tren.html)

3D Web Plugins - The Next Trend?

2009-04-22T01:05:42Z

Both Adobe and Microsoft have demonstrated the capabilities and importance of player-based runtimes within the browser -- There is no question about it. There are numerous things that you can do within the player based runtime that allow for an enhanced experience, and amazing graphical capabilities. Now, it appears that more and more 3D browser plugins are popping up.

Today, I read about 03D, a 3D web plugin released by Google. You can check out a sample of it in the demo video below:

Go check out the samples page to see it in action. The 03D runtime worked fine on my desktop computer, but apparently my laptop isn't compatible with it.

In addition to O3D, there is also Unity 3D. Unity does work on my laptop, and performs beautifully. Go check out the samples to be blown away.

Both of these plugins offer very powerful 3D graphical computing delivered through the browser. It will be interesting to see where this technology leads. One thing I've noticed is that high-quality 3D graphics still require a lot of assets to download (10s, or even 100s of megs). It will be interesting to see what people can come up with to solve that problem.

Mozilla is even in on the game, creating their own open, javascript powered 3D environment. I'm sure there are other solutions out that I'm forgetting to acknowledge, or even more coming in the future.

These are definitely interesting times, and there will be interesting trends to watch.

___________________________________
Andrew Trice
Principal Architect
Cynergy Systems
http://www.cynergysystems.com

Comment from Andrew Trice on 2009-04-21

2009-04-22T01:53:13Z

I also forgot to mention... hardware accelerated 3D on the web has been around in Director for years, so it will be interesting to see if these gain more traction. Flash 10 obviously now supports limited 3D transformations, and software-rendered frameworks such as Papervision3D aren't doing too bad either.

Comment from Tomas Sancio on 2009-04-21

2009-04-22T02:52:07Z

I thought Google was reinventing the wheel until I dug the original Khronos press release which states "The working group will consider various approaches including exposing OpenGL and OpenGL ES 2.0 capabilities within ECMAScript." In other words, that's OpenGL in Actionscript and Javascript for which Papervision3D could provide a stepping stone. The link to the press release is this one: http://bit.ly/X8IDC

But then I saw that now is when they're starting to work on the "standard" and Google is already proposing something which seems to be somewhat different. I've seen the functions for creating shapes and within my limited OpenGL knowledge, they're not. They probably figured out that the value of an open standard is to become proficient in it before anybody else.

Comment from Danny Stefanic on 2009-04-21

2009-04-22T04:39:24Z

A great start with O3D, I do hope that Google adopt open standards so everyone can benefit and interoperate.

ExitReality web 3D app already achieves this on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera browsers.

It also supports all graphics cards in laptops, you don't need a gamers machine to experience 3D multiuser worlds anymore.

Full support for Khronos groups Collada format and ISO X3D open standards and MPEG4 avatar standards also.

http://www.exitreality.com

Comment from Travis Almand on 2009-04-22

2009-04-22T13:12:46Z

Why does 3D in the browser keep popping up as news every few years? This has been done before, it is nothing new. The latest plug-ins we're seeing are just the continuation of what we've seen before, but only prettier.

Is the proposal here to create an open standard that all browsers will have natively, as opposed to a plug-in? If not, then I don't see the point of Google developing this since we already have quite a few good and clever plug-ins that serve the purpose already.

Although one thing that makes Google's implementation interesting is that it uses Javascript for coding.

"One thing I've noticed is that high-quality 3D graphics still require a lot of assets to download (10s, or even 100s of megs)."

I'm afraid it will be like this for a while and will only get worse. High quality graphics require high quality art assets. As the scene gets more expansive and prettier the longer the download. The only way around this is to create everything on the fly procedurally, but you wouldn't want to put all those artists out of work would you?

But why mess around with tech demos? Want to see what 3D in the browser is like in a fun way? QuakeLive.

Comment from Steeeee on 2009-07-08

2009-07-08T20:04:09Z

found a pretty good example of 3D Web: 3d.linnean.org.uk.

best example I have seen. only works on windows at the mo tho.

Steeeee