[x3d-public] New Year's resolution: dedicated working-group focus on X3D interoperability

[Don Brutzman <brutzman@nps.navy.mil>]

The X3D working group is concluding another great year with lots
of accomplishments.  We have had a steady stream of specification
improvements, and currently a stable X3D Revision 2 Amendment 1
(aka X3D version 3.2) is undergoing international ISO review.
Viewing tools, authoring tools and content keep getting better and
better.  More people and more software are adopting X3D.  Importers
and exporters are becoming robust.  The benefits of XML and ability
to use other XML-related Web standards are adding lots of value.
Specification comments & bug reports steadily keep coming in, making
our standard stronger and better each time.  We're on our way!

However there are some recurring issues that deserve our attention
as a working group.  Browsers don't install and operate very
consistently, making it difficult for end users to see X3D as
a stable standard.  User interfaces and navigation also have
some troublesome differences.  Perhaps most importantly, we have
added lots of functionality that browser companies are still
working to implement.  Much work is in progress, but in the
meanwhile there are still several shared impediments that affect
all of us.

In order to focus the energy of our group on the problems of greatest
importance, we plan to shift gears and focus on interoperability and
deployment issues for the next 4 months.  It is crucial that we get
everything "just working right."  Our graduation milestone will be
the Web3D 2007 Symposium in Perugia, Italy next April 15-19.
http://www.web3d.org/web3d2007

During this time there will be moratorium on "new nodes."  We already
have a _lot_ of functionality in X3D.  Certainly there are a lot of
good ideas for further functionality in the proposal stage, and we
will continue to extend X3D.  However we don't want to get too far
ahead of ourselves - stability and capability and interoperability
for already-approved nodes needs to be solid first.  We will continue
to extend X3D, but our working-group conversations need to focus on the
deployment and usability issues in existing tools that have resisted
consistent success, despite plenty of solitary hard work by each company.

We will also look at further deployment.  Getting X3D content on the
SIGGRAPH and Wikipedia sites, exploring whether X3D might become part
of Open Document Format, collaborating with OpenGIS Consortium through a
new X3D Earth working group, and other growth strategies are all worthy
of group discussion.  The wisdom of the group and coordinated expert
efforts often lift us through difficult challenges to new successes.

Conformance progress will be part of this effort.  We will also look at
how to better mobilize the larger user community and help them engage
effectively.  There is plenty of important work ahead, and all hands
are welcome to help.  We look forward to further participation - after
all, it is fun!  All contributions and comments will be welcome.

Thanks to everyone for your many great efforts in 2006.  We're all
looking forward to further mainstreaming in 2007.  Hopefully this
4-month focus on implementation interoperability and a consistent
user experience will help us finally springboard into Web-wide use.

all the best, Don
--
Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br       work +1.831.656.2149
             MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA  fax  +1.831.656.7599
Virtual worlds/underwater robots/X3D/XMSF     http://web.nps.navy.mil/~brutzman

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