[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [x3d-public] dedicated working-group focus on X3D interoperability
John stated and Joe had additional thoughts
Congratulations on this working group, and of the moratorium on new
nodes. Most certainly, the number of nodes in X3D, and the rate they
are being placed, is staggering.
totally unmanagable - except for the presence of the complete node list at:
<http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specifications/ISO-IEC-19775-X3DAbstractSpecification_Revision1_to_Part1/Part01/nodeIndex.html>
and the complete node descriptions in the encodings standards,
and the due process of the spec team through which those
nodes are added to the standard.
Athough FreeWRL tries to support as many nodes as possible,
FreeWRL only needs to support all the nodes in each Profile(s)
for which it claims conformance.
What we appear to be doing is to move that optimization level up the
food
chain; making our job easier.
Please see replies from browser makers.
In my limited view, at the first level X3D is abstracting interfaces
to other lower-level graphics and interaction abstraction, which
is in turn at least one more abstraction of the real code 'metal'.
The author/user was greatly served by abstracting the IFS from what
was there at the time, and still stands as the best way to author
a broad class of geometry with several built-in features that
simplifiy and organize authoring choices.
Now the abstraction upon which X3D is built has evolved
to allow X3D to augment existing authoring choices by allowing
more detailed access to the renderable mesh and operations
which can be performed upon it.
Examples are the various TriangleSet nodes,
and the Shader nodes.
When we
write in Java or C, we expect the compiler/interpreter to make
optimizations for
us *that fit with the current hardware*.
X3D seems to have missed that point.
I think most any computer should be able to run Interchange profile.
Microsoft is being very strict on this, I heard. no more capability bits
for DX10. You either do it all or you can't pass.
Other than that, I just don't see how you expect me to author X3D for
'current hardware' any more than I should author X3D for the
'current' browser' - I just can't know. Besides i am too pure
with the idea of X3D as a standardized accessible part of the WWW.
X3D Anywhere and aotfp.
FreeWRL, by the way, treats most geometry identical internally.
But this has nothing to do with the standard,
or interoperability of X3D user code.
We are
not quite at performing major runtime optimizations yet; but it will
come.
Another suggestion, maybe even better than my previous one of
SAI work is to get the attention of other browser builders with another
important interoperability/useability goal of getting Consistent
navigation performance.
For example, if the X3D browsers cannot agree on what EXAMINE,
WALK, and FLY navigation is supposed to do in a couple of major
situations, or even stepping up and agree upon some other test
implementations of some form of 'game' navigation for X3D, then
that is a bigger problem for X3D than even a couple of browsers
being slow to implement some nodes.
Congratulations .. to Don...
Also, Thanks to both of you for your efforts advancing X3D.
Best Regards,
Joe
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
for list subscription/unsubscription,
go to http://www.web3d.org/cgi-bin/public_list_signup/lwgate/listsavail.html