1. 3D on the Web
Bernie Roehl
December, 2000

2. Overview What is Web3D? Applications (why Web3D is important)
History (where we’ve been)
Current Status (where we are)
The Future (where we’re going)
Where does that leave you?
Tech talk -- creating 3D web content

3. What is Web3D? Combination of two powerful forces
the internet
3D graphics
The result: interactive, realtime 3D graphics delivered over the web

4. Why now? Until recently, there were two problems:
slow computers
slow connections
Downloading 3D content took a long time
Once downloaded, it ran very slowly
Quality of the graphics was poor

5. What’s Changed? Increased bandwidth into the home
cable modems
DSL
Increased processor speed
1 ghz and beyond
Graphics accelerators
installed on all new machines
able to provide fast, high-quality graphics

6. Applications E-commerce Training product visualization
3D virtual shops
interactive demos
3D “banner ads”
Training
web-based training using interactive 3D

7. Applications (cont’d)
Games
multi-player, fully 3D (e.g. Sony Everquest)
Entertainment
streaming 3D animation (much lower bandwidth than video, can run full-screen, can have interactivity)
Social Interaction
3D chat spaces

8. Applications (cont’d)
Education
virtual “field trips”
distance education as well as on-campus
virtual “experiments” for physical sciences
historical recreations for social sciences
3D data visualization for various fields

9. Applications (cont’d)
Collaborative design and engineering
architecture
product design
plant layout
ergonomics

10. History
In the beginning, there was VRML. And it was good. But not great.
VRML 1.0 had an awkward scene graph structure (inherited from SGI’s OpenInventor)
VRML 2.0 (renamed VRML 97) fixed that problem, but introduced others

11. VRML 97 ISO standard for 3D graphics on the web Lots of good ideas
Too many good ideas -- very difficult to implement
Very large browsers (3 meg downloads!)
Incompatibilities across implementations

12. Other problems
Complexity of the spec made it an expensive business to get into
Players had to be free, so...
Companies tried to sell authoring tools
CosmoWorlds from SGI
VR Creator from VREAM
many others

13. Problems (cont’d) Slow acceptance
players too large and buggy
bandwidth too limited for “serious” content
computers too slow to play content in realtime
Therefore… no market for authoring tools
Most companies withdrew from the market

14. The Many Woes of Cosmo
The most influential players and tools came from Cosmo Software, a division of SGI
SGI hit money problems, sold off several divisions -- including Cosmo
Cosmo was bought by Platinum
Platinum hit money problems, got bought by Computer Associates

15. Whither Cosmo?
Computer Associates essentially abandoned Cosmo (but is still buying up 3D companies)
Engineers who worked on Cosmo got snatched up (e.g. by Sony)
CosmoPlayer and CosmoWorlds were orphaned

16. Current State of VRML VRML 97 was ahead of its time
Modern computers have no problem with it
(demo)
Several VRML vendors still around, doing well
Blaxxun Interactive (Contact)
Parallel Graphics (Cortona)
Sony (VRML multi-user systems)

17. The Present Chaos! VRML is now just one of many competing technologies
Not clear which ones will be successful
Market is still not growing as fast as companies are entering it
Shake-out is inevitable

18. 3D Web Technologies (3/13/00)
3D Dreams (
3D Groove (
Alice (
Anfy 3D (
Atomic 3D (
Blaxxun3D (
Cult3D (

19. 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
e3DNet (
Flatland (
Fluid3D (
Gel (
Genesis3D (
Hollywood3D (
Java 3D (

20. 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
Lightspace3d (
MetaStream (
Multipath Movies (
NeMo (
OpenSpace3D (
Pulse3D (
PuppetTime (

21. 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
Realax (
Scol (
Shout3D (
Vecta3D (
WorldUp (
Zap (
Plus...

22. 3D Web Technologies (cont’d)
Cortona (
Contact (
CosmoPlayer (
… and many others!

23. So What Happened to VRML?
Many of the systems above use VRML (but don’t call it that)
VRML is “under the hood” of Java3D, X3D, MPEG-4, and many of the proprietary systems
Basic VRML “scene graph” concept is used by the vast majority of systems out there

24. Who Will Survive? Good question!
Market isn’t large enough for all those companies to make it
Some (most!) will fail
Those who survive will do very well
Stakes are high
New markets appearing soon (set top boxes, game consoles...)

25. Order from Chaos?
In theory, the Web3D Consortium exists to push open standards
Largely ineffective, for a variety of reasons
Their current effort is X3D, a successor to VRML
Much infighting about DTD’s, very slow progress
Proprietary solutions are pulling ahead

26. Current State of the Art
Several different approaches
Web browser plug-ins
Plug-ins for other plug-ins
RealPlayer
Shockwave
Standalone applications

27. Demo time! Blaxxun3D Shout3D MetaStream Cult3D Pulse3D Cortona
Others...

28. Blaxxun3D 55 kb Java applet Supports most of the VRML spec
Full interactivity, fully programmable
Completely cross-platform
No plug-ins, nothing to install
Works great!

29. Shout3D Small Java applet (size varies) Supports most of the VRML spec
Full interactivity, fully programmable
Completely cross-platform
No plug-ins, nothing to install
Extensible
Works great!

30. MetaStream Puts 3D graphics on a Web page
Easy to use (3D Studio Max exporter)
Viewer must be downloaded and installed
Viewer bundled with browsers
No royalties
Clever incremental download technology
Downside: no interactivity (version 3.0 will fix this)

31. Cult3D From Swedish company “Cycore” Fast, lots of features
Big marketing push right now
Expensive to license ($3600 per product line)
New version just released
One of the front runners

32. Pulse 3D From Pulse Networks “Virtual Jay Leno”
Tightly integrated with 3D Studio Max
Close ties with Discreet
Supports streaming 3D animation
Very powerful
Largish download

33. Cortona From Parallel Graphics Minimal download is 500 kb Very fast
Full support for VRML
Lots of extensions (e.g. NURBS)
Good authoring tools (Internet Scene Assembler, Internet Character Animator)

34. The Future - X3D? X3D will happen
By the time it’s designed and implemented, market will already be very crowded
Not clear what (if anything) it adds to VRML
May be too little, too late

35. The Future - MPEG-4? MPEG-4 will happen
Lots of big companies pushing it
Uses VRML, H-Anim, etc
Licensing issues still unclear
Won’t be commercially available for at least a year (possibly longer)
Authoring tools will be needed

36. The Future (cont’d) Most likely scenario: Short term… Medium term…
Market remains split between a few small proprietary solutions (probably Cult3D, Pulse3D, MetaStream) plus Java applets
Medium term…
Standards begin to take hold (particularly MPEG-4) and slowly displace proprietary solutions
Long term… who knows? :-)

37. So where does that leave us?
Basic advice:
Don’t lock into any one technology yet
Decide what the needs of your application are
Create your 3D content in 3D Studio Max
reasonably powerful package
almost all formats have 3D Studio Max exporters
can re-target content to different systems down the road if necessary

38. What to do next Start thinking how 3D can help your web site
Can be a major differentiator
Good 3D content is compelling
Interactivity leads to “stickiness”

39. Tech Talk How to create 3D web content: start with design!
create geometry (virtual objects)
export to intermediate format
animate and add interactivity
polish (sound, text, surrounding HTML)
convert to final format and publish

40. Design How can 3D help me convey my message?
What visual form should the 3D content take? (What is my metaphor?)
What kinds of 3D objects are needed?
How will they move?
How will the user interact with them?

41. Geometry Creation Use existing 3D modeling programs
3D StudioMax
Lightwave
TrueSpace
Maya
Softimage
Use whichever ones you’re most familiar with (3D Studio Max very popular for this)

42. Exporting to Intermediate Format
Exporters are plug-ins to the 3D authoring application that let it save in a different format
Converters are standalone programs that read a standard format and convert to an intermediate form

43. Animation and Interactivity
Can be created in 3D authoring application and exported
Can be created in a separate authoring tool (e.g. Pulse, Cult3D)
Can be created using standard Javascript (Blaxxun3D, Shout3D)
Advantages and disadvantages to each approach

44. Polishing Add sound, music if appropriate
User actions should often have sound
Put in context by creating a surrounding HTML page
Add links to additional information pages

45. Publishing
Once everything is working, the content gets put on a standard web site
Users go to that web site to view the content (possibly after downloading an appropriate plug-in)

46. The Content Creation Team
3D modelers
fairly specialized skill
different modelers know different packages
can also create 3D content from scanning
3D “clip art” also available
2D artists
probably already in-house for web page art
generally use PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro

47. Content Creation Team (con’td)
Sound/music specialists
probably available in-house
must adapt skills to Web3D context
Animators
often same as modelers
must be able to design for interaction
Programmers
Javascript, Java both common

48. Example 1 -- The Toaster Geometry created in 3D Studio Max
Background modeled and then pre-rendered (once with lights on, once off)
Textures came from a library, everything else was created from scratch in Max
Exported to VRML 97

49. Toaster (continued)
Some cleanup required on the exported VRML (easy to do with a text editor)
Animation handled with Javascript
Final output is just VRML, viewed using the Blaxxun3D viewer with HTML and Javascript

50. Example 2 -- Forest Walk
Forest created by Andrew Reitmeyer for the VRML Dream project
Simply uploaded the VRML file to a web site and wrote a short HTML page to use Shout3D’s “walk” viewer applet on it
Total time minutes!
Building the forest itself took a bit longer

51. Here’s the HTML <body bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF">
<center>
<applet width=300 height=250
codebase="../common/shout3d"
archive="shout3dClasses.zip"
code="applets/WalkApplet.class">
<param name=src value="forest.wrl">
</applet>
<br><i>Use the mouse to walk through the world</i>
</center>
</body>

52. Example 3 -- SciSat Content originally created in 3D Studio
Imported into 3D Studio Max, exported to MetaStream
Uploaded it and wrote a short HTML page to view it
Backdrop of Earth orbit was pre-rendered in Max
Total time -- five minutes, because we’re leveraging existing content

53. Here’s the HTML
<head><title>Canada's SciSat</title></head>
<body bgcolor=# text=#FFFFFF>
<center>
<embed name="metaviewer" type="application/metastream"
pluginspage=
"
BgImg="earth_from_orbit.jpg"
ui="black" logo="0" width="320" height="240"
src="scisat.mts">
</embed>
<p><em>Try dragging the satellite around</em>
<p><em>Drag with the CTRL key down to zoom
in and out</em>
</center>
</body>

54. Key Points Simple 3D web sites can be easy to create
Good 3D content can be compelling
You need to build a good team
Try to leverage existing 3D content wherever possible

55. Contact Information
These slides
Bernie Roehl
VR Studios
Web3D Consortium