Real-time 3D is emerging as a first-class media type for the web. Network bandwidth and graphics hardware processing power are now sufficiently advanced to enable compelling web-based 3D experiences, including games, online virtual worlds, simulations, education and training. Commercial developers are expressing increasing interest in exploiting real-time 3D in web applications to enhance production value, create engaging immersive experiences, and deliver information in a more meaningful way.
Much of the infrastructure has been put into place to enable professional Web 3D deployment in a cross-platform, open, royalty-free environment. Interoperability standards such as ISO standard Extensible 3D Graphics (X3D) are now mature, fully functional and robust, and supported by multiple open source implementations and affordable production pipelines. However, those technologies only go so far, in that they are focused on the transportability of embedded rich content, and not on the applications that embed it. The industry is in need of a rapid development environment for creating scalable, highly interactive client-server 3D applications on the web.
Ajax – Asynchronous Javascript and XML—has emerged as a preferred method for developing sophisticated web applications. Ajax makes client-server programming available to Javascript developers via Dynamic HTML, resulting in rich, responsive applications hosted in a web browser. While Ajax is being used to deploy some of the industry’s leading applications, such as Google Maps™ and Netflix™, current browsers are limited in their capabilities to render dynamic content, in particular high performance real-time 3D.
Ajax3D combines the power of X3D, the standard for real-time 3D on the web, with the ease of use and ubiquity of Ajax. Ajax3D employs the X3D Scene Access Interface (SAI)—the X3D equivalent of the DOM— to control 3D worlds via Javascript. With the simple addition of an X3D plugin to today’s web browsers, we can bring the awesome power of video game technology to the everyday web experience.
The initial development has begun. Media Machines has created the first showcase applications and tutorials, and has launched a web site, www.ajax3d.org, as an open industry forum to explore technologies, techniques and best practices. This white paper describes the key technical concepts behind Ajax3D and, via examples, introduces the beginning of a formal programming framework for general use.
With Ajax3D, immersive virtual worlds can be deployed within a web browser, integrated with pages and other media. Ajax3D worlds can communicate with standard web servers using XML and Ajax technologies, enabling professional, scalable, industrial strength applications with high production value and visual impact.
Ajax3D is in its infancy. In the coming months, it will need to be nurtured and actively developed. Media Machines hopes that the initiative began at www.ajax3d.org will take on a life of its own and become a world wide forum for research and development of this exciting new technology.
Publication is based on
the contents of www.ajax3d.org website.
Prepared by editor E. Malikova (Russia).