X3D and HTML5 Summary
From Web3D.org
- Family of X3D Specifications;
- X3D Abstract Specification describes basic functionality
- Three file formats are available: XML (.x3d), ClassicVRML (x3dv), and Compressed Binary Encoding (.x3db)
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) Ecmascript (Javascript) and Java
- Relationships between scene graphs, APIs and render layers;
- Scene graphs are high-level declarative models about how geometry is constructed, colored and animated; these can be expressed as an XML tree
- APIs are mid-level libraries for programmers to create imperative source code about geometry and animation (various proprietary codebases, O3D, perhaps WebGL)
- Render layers are low-level software libraries that expose the functionality of graphics hardware (e.g. OpenGL, DirectX)
- Similarities between MathML, SVG, and X3D;
- MathML describes mathematical expressions and then renders a presentation of them
- Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) describes and presents renderings of 2D shapes, with optional animation and interaction
- Extensible 3D (X3D) describes and presents renderings of 3D shapes, with optional animation and interaction
- All three languages are formally specified and have well-developed XML encodings
- Authors want to use these languages for multimedia content in HTML pages
- X3D scene graph APIs
- X3D Scene Access Interface (SAI) provides a consistent standardized API
- X3D SAI has Ecmascript and Java bindings, other programming languages can be added
- X3D SAI is functionally equivalent and has same expressive power as file formats
- Document Object Model (DOM) is also legal (X3D is XML after all) but infrequently used because of low performance
- Simple X3D example and HTML5 examples; (how current integration looks like via object model then to html5)
- X3D scene as external reference (Anchor link)
- X3D as embedded object;
- HTML5 with embedded x3d as mixed namespaces;
- Template for demo = html5+x3d event passing connections.
- Recommendations for html5 specification.
