The term ‘Metaverse’ has taken on a new sparkle recently, appearing prominently in the marketing materials of a number of large technology companies. Indeed, many have attempted, or are attempting, to co-opt it for their own purposes, which has resulted in a great deal of confusion among producers and consumers in the marketplace. With this short position paper, the Web3D Consortium seeks to address this confusion by exploring the history of the ‘Metaverse’ that has led us to our current state, providing a workable definition of the term ‘Metaverse’, and providing a vision for its sustainable, cooperative construction into the future. We believe that all the technologies are in place to fulfill the vision of an open, equitable, and ubiquitous information space. What remains are the key issues that have kept the Metaverse from manifesting the last two decades: user experience and corporate cooperation. See attached paper below.

This blog post will present three techniques to improve 3D visualizations of mechanical parts published on the web. Web users expect standard and intuitive user interaction patterns without a steep learning curve or need a User’s Manual to read and use the links on that page. Standard web content practices give users familiar patterns for hyperlinks, for text search features, and audiovisual playback; this article is a start at establishing conventions for interactive 3D content delivered on a web page.