Virginia Tech and Web3D Consortium hosted a one-day workshop to provide presentations to Naval enterprise leaders on the use of collaborative Web-based #X3D visualization techniques by Government, Academia and Industry practitioners.

The workshop was intended to foster networking and showcase current and emerging capabilities for enterprise-scale, networked geo-enabled 3D communications. Increasing shared understanding and technical coordination agility can be feasibly adapted to improve digital connectedness, accelerate consensus/decision making processes across systems engineering, advance planning conceptualization, and collaborative virtual rehearsal for ashore & afloat logistics activities. Building shared priorities adds value for everyone. Workshop participants discussed their reactions "around the room" together, sharing ideas about opportunities and potential synergies that can further the art of the possible to realize shared innovation.

The workshop showcased the benefits and strengths of sing the Web3D Consortium’s Extensible 3D (X3D) open 3D standards for the WWW and included:

• Demonstrations using 3D scanners, 3D software & 3D data storage, and processing proved compelling use cases for how the X3D standard can enable new realities of collaborative 3D visualization for you 

• Overview of Web3D Standards and their value proposition in the ecology of 3D data representations and file formats 

• Appreciation of the long-game of technology and information systems investments: born out with this open International Standard (ISO-IEC) and WWW community, including dozens of tools, pipelines, and engines

• Collaborative 3D Visualization for Ashore, Afloat and Expeditionary Readiness Workshop

• Twitter thread includes highlight points, photos, screenshots and links for everyone.  

The Workshop was a thrilling excursion into the art of the possible for interactive 3D Facilities, Logistics, Safety, and Heritage management. And as Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”  For each of our respective missions, we showed how critical it is that we demand interoperability, durability, and portability of our 3D assets, information systems, and services.

Looking ahead to 2020, we have an aggressive and impactful agenda. Web3D Consortium Members are technology leaders, driving several ISO-IEC Standards this year (see Addendum). Standards leadership insures a long-term and sustainable data strategy for any enterprise; in the era of Big Data, the requirements and benefits of interoperability are never more clear. 

As we continue to build new X3D features and Standards support for interactive 3D rendering and analytics (with GIS and Lidar analytics and domain-specific Metadata vocabularies), your applications and innovations can be woven into the fabric of the WWW ! Join us and push the future of Web3D! 

There has never been a better time to join as a voting Web3D Consortium Member and participate in its world-wide community efforts to extend the X3D Specification, its encodings, and its language binding APIs now and into the future!

X3D version 4.0 will be ratified by Web3D Members and sent to ISO-IEC this year for international ballot. New features include: improved point cloud rendering, volume rendering, and improved Physically-Based Rendering (PBR) and HTML5 and DOM support, among other improvements and extensions.

In addition to our extensive technical work, we have multiple upcoming outreach events this year, especially IEEE VR in Atlanta March 22-26 and SIGGRAPH 2020 in Washington DC on July 19-23. Web3D Consortium Members are welcome to participate in these and other marketing initiatives.  Please contact us for next steps!  

En route to common and interoperable Web3D platforms, we would welcome you to a Member or WG meeting to address your application and use case, and for you to directly see the value in joining our not-for-profit, member-driven organization!