Getting Started with X3D

Welcome to the world of real-time, interactive, online 3D!

Introduction

Extensible 3D (X3D) is a royalty-free, platform-independent, open-standard file format and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D scenes and objects. X3D is an ISO/IEC internationally-ratified standard that provides a system for the storage, retrieval and playback of real time graphics content embedded in applications, all within an open architecture to support a wide array of domains and user scenarios. X3D has a rich set of componentized features that can be tailored for use in engineering and scientific visualization, CAD and architecture, medical visualization, training and simulation, multimedia, entertainment, education, and more. The not-for-profit Web3D Consortium develops the standards for the Durability and the Portability of interactive 3D across platforms, and Interoperability of that content between 3D applications.

If you are ready to build and publish your own Interactive Web3D worlds, see our X3D Workflows Page! to Develop and Deploy X3D.

You will need a couple of things to get started before viewing your first X3D environment:

An HTML5 web browser (with WebGL enabled) - Native solution without plug-ins

and/or a full-featured X3D rendering engine installed on your machine as a plug-in

Create X3D

X3D Members

  1. You can now visit a variety of content pages. You are now ready to further explore the capabilities of X3D. Please follow the links below to access the more advanced information.