Development by Davis: “3D Web for everyone?” plus 1 more

Posted: 03 Mar 2012 04:35 AM PST

Compared to computer games, movies and professional graphics tools the amount of 3D rendered, interactive web content is still rather minimal these days. When we shop online (e.g. deciding if we want to buy a new camera) we often get to see some photographs from pre-set perspectives. In better cases there is a 360 degree view available that has been built out of photographs, but lacks any sort of interactivity with the object and might not provide the required details.

With HTML5 and WebGL there is an opportunity to enrich the web with 3D content. However, for a regular web designer it is rather hard to get interactive 3D models integrated into their webpage and have them viewable across the compute continuum (from high-end workstation machines to mobile phones) due to the coding complexity and inability of the same code to work across different compute devices. This is where XML3D will likely play an important role in the future. It is an extension of HTML5 developed by the Intel Visual Computing Institute*, DFKI and the Saarland University under the lead of Kristian Sons.

XML3D enables a web developer to easily integrate 3D content into the web browser and to be able to use existing programming languages like JavaScript to interact with them. If for example a web designer would want to display a triangle, he would just add code like this:

(header)

<xml3d:int name="index">0 1 2</xml3d:int>

<xml3d:float3 name="position">0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0 0.0</xml3d:float3>

(footer)

Of course the full language offers much more like translating, rotating, scaling, materials, grouping, camera changes, dynamic manipulations etc.

One interesting aspect of XML3D is that is never forces a certain rendering algorithm. Therefore on a high-end workstation a higher quality, ray traced image could be calculated. Other devices could use WebGL or a completely different renderer for displaying the content.

The way to enable XML3D to the masses is not by a browser plug-in, but by defining it as a standard in the World Wide Web Consortiums (W3C) and to have it natively supported in the browser. A modified Firefox and Google Chromium version can be downloaded from XML3D website and experimented with. Let us know what you think. What are your thoughts on 3D in the browser? Where would you desire it the most? What new possibilities might arise with this? Tell us your opinion in our comment section.

Also we would be happy to welcome you at our booth at CeBIT 2012 in Hall 26, booth F34 and show you a live demo of XML3D.

* "Intel Visual Computing Institute" is a collaborative research institute at Saarland University co-funded by Intel

Could Watson be your doctor's new AI ally?

Posted: 02 Mar 2012 11:31 AM PST

Watson, IBM's formidable supercomputer Jeopardy contestant, made a video appearance at the annual meeting of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). Watson appeared in a talk given by Dr. Martin Kohn, chief medical scientist for IBM's Care Delivery Systems.