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RE: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"

• To: "'Atchley, John'" <John.Atchley@f...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 09:55:35 -0600

X3D may be a good alternative if implemented and supported 
well.  Blaxxun (a VRML97 company) has filed for 'insolvency' 
in Germany.  The ParallelGraphics product, Cortona, is still 
alive.   Some are suggesting that Adobe Atmosphere will now 
be the preferred 3D product, proprietary format and all.

If you really need a robust API with multiuser and internet 
in mind, and you prefer an XML format with DOM support, you 
will want to support X3D.  It will be the ISO standard if 
such things matter to you.  The liaisons with W3C have ensured 
compatibility but, in my opinion, at a high cost to 
getting the specification done on schedule.   Real-time 
3D severely strains a lot commonly accepted MLisms with 
regards to the common DOM.

Real-time 3D is an industry still struggling to get out 
of the emergence phase.  If it all defaults to Adobe, I 
expect the same games of proprietary open standards (yes 
that is a real category) and patent encumbrances.

BTW:  VRML may not "matter" but it is the only 3D open 
and unencumbered standard on the Internet, and is widely 
used for interesting applications.   That did not matter 
to companies like anartica.ca which chose to rely on 
non-XML specifications for 3D.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Atchley, John [mailto:John.Atchley@f...]

I envision "Flash 22" as being able to play three-D movies directly in the
user's mind without special hardware -- but still having no means of
detecting text entry other than highly inefficient and
multi-tasking-unfriendly continuous polling...  

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