Comments on: Intel's 3D divorce rate

Company turns back on partners three times in four years. Behind the breakups: lousy technology or loss of control?

Why X3D

There is much in the story of politics, but little of technical reality:

1. 3D on the web has awaited Internet speed. When VRML launched, the average machine was Pentium 1-60. The average download was a 14 to 28 modem. Not fast enough.

2. 3D data is harder to create and takes talent. This is not HTML and those who expect it to scale like HTML are not dealing with the facts.

3. CAD is a 3D data source. From PDES/STEP forward, the need to decimate CAD data which is polygon rich into a faster format for online real time viewing has been understood. Other sources such as topological systems combined with GML, on the web interactive electronic technical manuals, medical system viewers, are all on the horizon. 3D on the web is a certainty but games are not the only application and given the market situation for games, not a likely first application. That HAS been badly understood by 3D web companies.

Yet at the end of the day, 3D as with every other application on the web must have an open format to thrive. Further, unlike many XML data languages, it requires an object format for the viewer that is robust with respect to rendering and behavioral fidelity. Close enough is not good enough. These are the goals of X3D.

If we are not to proprietarize the Internet further, we must recognize that real standards rely on three things.

a. An open standards body with members who sign participation agreements and documented processes

b. A participation agreement that settles all intellectual properties up front with royalty-free provisions. We MUST stop the IP wars. They are a throttle on the economy.

c. Conformance testing for all products with a test mark (a variant of a trademark) for products that pass. High quality systems must be reliable or the cost of the data format is unsustainable. 3D is a classic example.

While asking customers what they want is the right thing to do, it is not enough. Awareness of what is technically feasible and what is socially responsible must also be a part of customer-driven markets.

That is what the Web3D Consortium is providing with X3D. With ten years of experience, they have learned from their mistakes. May Intel be as responsible. One is happy to work with such partners.

Len Bullard
Member Web3D Board of Directors
Intergraph Corporation

U3D is the SPECIFICATION of a standard 3D format, it is not a 3D engine

Let me clear some misconceptions here.

The Intel IFX technology is in development at Intel since 1994 first at the Intel Architecture Lab then at Intel Corporate Technology Group. It was first packaged as an Active X control in 1996 (Beijing forbidden city visualization). It is not the only 3D technology in development since a long time and evolving.

That you find the same terminology as Shockwave 3D in U3D specification (ECMA 363) is normal as they are both based on the same technology. That both Shockwave 3D and U3D are based on the Intel IFX technology does not mean that U3D is a repackaged version of Shockwave 3D though. Indeed, U3D is based on an EVOLUTION of the Intel IFX technology. In 5 years since its collaboration with Macromedia, Intel engineers had all the time needed to make THEIR technology evolve. That a version of it was once packaged in the Macromedia Shockwave player with the help of Macromedia engineers does not mean that U3D is Shockwave 3D. By the way, it would also be forgetting that the Intel IFX technology is used in other products such as Discreet 3DS Max for realtime 3D display and manipulation of 3D scenes. So, if you go this way, you could also say that U3D is a repackaged version of Discreet 3DS Max realtime display 3D engine.

Such companies as Boeing or Hitachi would not endorse a dated 3D engine. Remember also that U3D is just a 3D format and that it will be up to vendors to create or adapt tools, 3D engines and players to display that format. So, the dated Shockwave 3D engine will definitely not make it into U3D. U3D is the SPECIFICATION of a standard 3D format, it is not a 3D engine.

We have to go beyond the compatibility of 3D modelling packages with a same format. We only have a standard if high quality 3D integration tools are compatible with the same format. This is the case with U3D as Yappa, Anark, Right Hemisphere and others are already U3D compatible.

Karl Sigiscar.

Shockwave 3D and Intel 3D technology is not just about entertainment

See what the Shockwave 3D technology is capable of aside from entertainment (namely e-learning and staff training) and why it is a valid choice to many in the industrial sector:

http://www.forgefx.com/casestudies/prenticehall/
http://www.3Dsolve.com

Also, remember the realtime 3D display engine for scene manipulation in Discreet 3DS Max is Intel 3D technology as well (note at the bottom about Discreet): http://www.intel.com/labs/optimizers/3dsoftware.htm