3D on the Web

1
3D on the Web

• Bernie Roehl
• March, 2000

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Overview

• What is Web3D?
• Applications (why Web3D is important)
• History (where weve been)
• Current Status (where we are)
• The Future (where were going)
• Where does that leave you?
• Tech talk -- creating 3D web content

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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
Whats Changed?

• Increased bandwidth into the home
• cable modems
• DSL
• Increased processor speed
• pushing 1 ghz
• Graphics accelerators
• installed on all new machines
• able to provide fast, high-quality graphics

6
Applications

• E-commerce
• product visualization
• 3D virtual shops
• interactive demos
• 3D banner ads
• Training
• web-based training using interactive 3D

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Applications (contd)

• 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

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Applications (contd)

• 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

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Applications (contd)

• Collaborative design and engineering
• architecture
• product design
• plant layout
• ergonomics

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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 SGIs OpenInventor)
• VRML 2.0 (renamed VRML 97) fixed that problem,
  but introduced others

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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

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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

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Problems (contd)

• 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

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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

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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

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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 (multi-user systems based around VRML)

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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

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3D Web Technologies (3/13/00)

• 3D Dreams (www.doitin3d.com)
• 3D Groove (www.3dgroove.com)
• Alice (www.alice.org)
• Anfy 3D (www.anfy3d.com)
• Atomic 3D (www.atomic3d.com)
• Blaxxun3D (www.blaxxun.com)
• Cult3D (www.cycore.com)

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3D Web Technologies (contd)

• e3DNet (www.e3dnet.com)
• Flatland (www.3dml.com)
• Fluid3D (www.oz.com/fluid3d)
• Gel (www.gel3d.org)
• Genesis3D (www.genesis3d.com)
• Hollywood3D (www.hollywood3d.com)
• Java 3D (www.java.com)

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3D Web Technologies (contd)

• Lightspace3d (www.ideaworks3d.com)
• MetaStream (www.metastream.com)
• Multipath Movies (www.bde3d.com)
• NeMo (www.nemo.com)
• OpenSpace3D (www.openspace3d.com)
• Pulse3D (www.pulse3d.com)
• PuppetTime (www.puppettime.com)

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3D Web Technologies (contd)

• Realax (www.realax.com)
• Scol (www.cryo-networks.com)
• Shout3D (www.shout3d.com)
• Vecta3D (www.vecta3d.com)
• WorldUp (www.sense8.com)
• Zap (www.tgs.com)
• Plus...

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3D Web Technologies (contd)

• Cortona (www.parallelgraphics.com)
• Contact (www.blaxxun.com)
• CosmoPlayer (www.cosmosoftware.com)
• and many others!

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So What Happened to VRML?

• Many of the systems above use VRML (but dont
  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

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Who Will Survive?

• Good question!
• Market isnt 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...)

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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 DTDs, very slow progress
• Proprietary solutions are pulling ahead

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Current State of the Art

• Several different approaches
• Web browser plug-ins
• Plug-ins for other plug-ins
• RealPlayer
• Shockwave
• Standalone applications

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Demo time!

• Blaxxun3D
• Shout3D
• MetaStream
• Cult3D
• Pulse3D
• Cortona
• Others...

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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!

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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!

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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)

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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

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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

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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)

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The Future - X3D?

• X3D will happen
• By the time its designed and implemented, market
  will already be very crowded
• Not clear what (if anything it adds to VRML)
• May be too little, too late

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The Future - MPEG-4?

• MPEG-4 will happen
• Lots of big companies pushing it
• Uses VRML, H-Anim, etc
• Licensing issues still unclear
• Wont be commercially available for at least a
  year (possibly longer)
• Authoring tools will be needed

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The Future (contd)

• Most likely scenario
• Short 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? -)

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So where does that leave us?

• Basic advice
• Dont 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

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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

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Tech Talk

• How to create 3D web content
• create geometry (virtual objects)
• export to intermediate format
• animate and add interactivity
• convert to final format and publish

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Geometry Creation

• Use existing 3D modeling programs
• 3D StudioMax
• Lightwave
• TrueSpace
• Maya
• Softimage
• Use whichever ones youre most familiar with (3D
  Studio Max very popular for this)

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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

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Animation and Interactivity

• Can be created in a separate authoring tool (e.g.
  Pulse, Cult3D)
• Can be created using standard Javascript
  (Blaxxun3D, Shout3D)
• Trade-offs both ways

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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)

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The Content Creation Team

• 3D modelers
• fairly specialized skill
• different modeler 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

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Content Creation Team (contd)

• 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

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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
  created from scratch in Max
• Exported to VRML 97

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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

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Example 2 -- Forest Walk

• Forest created for VRML Dream project
• Simply uploaded the VRML file to a web site and
  wrote a short HTML page to use Shout3Ds walk
  viewer applet on it
• Total time -- 10 minutes!
• Building the forest itself took a bit longer

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Heres the HTML
ltbody bgcolor"000000" text"FFFFFF"gt ltcentergt
ltapplet width300 height250
codebase"../common/shout3d
archive"shout3dClasses.zip"
code"applets/WalkApplet.class"gt ltparam
namesrc value"../../forest/forest.wrz"gt lt/applet
gt ltbrgtltigtUse the mouse to walk through the
worldlt/igt lt/centergt lt/bodygt
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Example 3 -- SciSat

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

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Heres the HTML
ltheadgtlttitlegtCanada's SciSatlt/titlegtlt/headgt ltbody
bgcolor000000 textFFFFFFgt ltcentergt ltembed
name"metaviewer" type"application/metastream"
pluginspage "http//www.metacreations.com/m
etastream/viewer/" BgImg"earth_from_orbit.jpg"
ui"black" logo"0 width"320" height"240"
src"scisat.mts"gt lt/embedgt ltpgtltemgtTry dragging
the satellite aroundlt/emgt ltpgtltemgtDrag with the
CTRL key down to zoom in and outlt/emgt lt/centergt lt/
bodygt
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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

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Contact Information

• These slides
• ece.uwaterloo.ca/broehl/powerpoint/webchicago.ppt
  
• Bernie Roehl
• broehl_at_ece.uwaterloo.ca
• VR Studios
• www.vrstudios.com
• Web3D Consortium
• www.web3d.org