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X3D tutorials
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Definition

X3D is a Web 3D technology.

“X3D is a royalty-free open standards file format and run-time architecture to represent and communicate 3D scenes and objects using XML. It is an ISO 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 tailored for use in engineering and scientific visualization, CAD and architecture, medical visualization, training and simulation, multimedia, entertainment, education, and more.
The development of real-time communication of 3D data across all applications and network applications has evolved from its beginnings as the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) to the considerably more mature and refined X3D standard.” (web|3D, retrieved 12:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)).

“X3D focuses on the visualization of 3D assets within applications. X3D has principally been targeted for the Web (thus the name and focus of the Web3D Consortium). X3D is a delivery format intended to contain the information needed for interactive applications. X3D specifies behaviors and interaction, and it includes both a specific run-time model that enables picking, viewing, navigation, and scripting, and an API to manipulate the scene graph at run-time.” (Arnaud and Parisi, 2007).

See also: web 3D technology (short overview), VRML (precursor of X3D], 3D interactive environment, 3D modeling, Collada (a similar format) and WebGL (a new low-level 3D graphics API for web browsers)

How to build X3D scenes, a very short overview

X3D scenes can contain two sorts of "contents": Objects and behaviors.

Creating objects

Basically, there are three kinds of options for creating a 3D object:

Build 3D scenes or elements of the scene with a tool that can export to X3D, i.e. a 3D modeling tool or a 3D Computer-aided_design_and_manufacturing#Software CAD tool.
Use a special-purpose X3D editor. Often such editors can import models formats produced with other 3D software (previous option) or this other software can export to X3D. Therefore, X3D editors are often just to used to assemble a scene and to make it interactive with behaviors.
Use an XML editor

Here is a longer list of options (John F. Richardson / VRML mailing list):

An open source modeling and animation system like Blender or Wings3D
A commercial modeling and animation system like Maya or Lightwave3D or Softimage
Your own proprietary modeling and animation system
Free for personal use commercial VRML/X3D authoring tool like Vivaty
Commercial VRML/X3D authoring system [ authoring systems from Vivaty / Octaga / Bitmanagement / Parallel Graphics / … ]. Cost varies.
Open source VRML/X3D authoring system like X3D-Edit.
A text editor, preferably an schema-aware XML editor
A text editor without any XML support

See below and also the Web3D website for lists of tools

Creating behaviors

A so-called behavior can be defined as changing the value of property of an object with the scene. Values are usually numbers, e.g. define the size or shape or position of an object.

Behaviors can be triggered by various means such as "data producers" (e.g. a user navigates close to an object), interpolations (computer generated values over time) or scripts. These data producers are connected to objects that they change through ROUTEs. More specifically a ROUTE passes an event, i.e. a value change at a given time from an "output" field of an object to an "input" field of another object.

The scene graph

According to Nicholas f. Polys (retrieved Aug 27 2010), “Conceptually, each X3D application is a 3D time-based space that contains graphic and aural objects that can be loaded over a network and dynamically modified through a variety of mechanisms. The semantics of X3D describe an abstract functional behaviour of time-based, interactive 3D, multimedia information.
The basic unit of the X3D run-time environment is the scene graph. This structure contains all the objects in the system and their relationships. Relationships are contained along several axes of the scene graph. The transformation hierarchy describes the spatial relationship of rendering objects. The behavior graph describes the connections between fields and the flow of events through the system. An X3D scene graph is a directed acyclic graph. Nodes can contain specific fields with one or more children nodes which participate in the hierarchy. These may, in turn, contain nodes (or instances of nodes). This hierarchy of nodes is called the scene graph. Each arc in the graph from A to B means that node A has a field whose value directly contains node B.”

X3D, a modular architecture

Unlike its VRML predecessor, X3D has a modular architecture with four baseline profiles (What is X3D?

Interchange is the basic profile for communicating between applications. It support geometry, texturing, basic lighting, and animation
Interactive enables basic interaction with a 3D environment by adding various sensor nodes for user navigation and interaction (e.g., PlanseSensor, TouchSensor, etc.), enhanced timing, and additional lighting (Spotlight, PointLight).
Immersive enables full 3D graphics and interaction, including audio support, collision, fog, and scripting.
Full includes all defined nodes including NURBS, H-Anim (animated interactive Avatars) and GeoSpatial components.

X3D Baseline Profiles: Source: What is X3D?, retrieved 11:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Software

X3D Clients

There exist several clients for Win/Linux/Mac. The best ones are probably commercial (in particular BS Contact), they provide free versions that include some "nagging", i.e. a crawling logo.

To check what X3D/VRML extensions you have

VRML Plugin and Browser Detector (click, it will extract information provided by your browser)
For more clients not mentioned here, see X3D Resources or the shorter VRML Plugin and Browser Detector.

Major clients (tested by Daniel K. Schneider).

Octaga Player. Full free X3D player for Window and Linux.

BS Contact VRML X3D VRML/X3D. Commercial software for Win/Mac/Linux, but 60 days of trial. A free version that includes a crawling banner is available. As of Aug 2010, the Linux versions is "RPM" only (see below for installing under Ubuntu).

Other clients

Deep MatrixIP9 (Instant Reality) from the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD-A4) is a new client and application framework. Multiple platforms supported. Public beta for the moment - 10:36, 16 May 2010 (UTC). Works with the deepmatrix multi-user server (see below)
- Instant reality tutorials

Free WRL the best known open-source (GPL) X3D and VRML browser for Unix/Linux/OS X. Perl/C based. Not X3D feature complete, almost VRML feature complete as of 2010, but getting there.... This is a long-term alive project.

OpenVRML, the other open-source X3D and VRML browser (not tested).

Xj3D - Java based X3D Toolkit and X3D Browser. Cross-platform, but not as fast as others.

Flux from MediaMachines, a company that became Vivaty in 2008, dead in April 2010.
The free player X3D player for Windows (IE/Firefox) was open source and should be still available on SourceForge: Flux Web3D Engine on SourceForge

Specialized clients

Alpharis, a collective knowledge organization tool that uses X3D (?)

ManyOne is a Digital Universe. Features a modified Mozilla with a flux plugin for 3D contents. (dead as of Aug. 2010).

Kambi VRML game engine, main focus is on 3D games using VRML / X3D format (although other 3D model formats are also supported). Added Aug. 2010.

ExitReality plugin for IE/Firefox 3 from ExistReality supports several formats, in particular: X3D, DAE, KML and VRML. Not sure that these formats are fully supported, not tested - Daniel K. Schneider 16:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC).

3D plugin selector

List of 3D plugin selectors at MediaMachines.com,

Installing BS Contact under Ubuntu

To install under Ubuntu as explained here, follow these steps: Get it:

wget http://www.bitmanagement.de/developer/download/BSContact-7.1.07-4.i386.rpm

Extract the files with rpm2cpio (creates a cpio archive, then will extract the files to./opt/BSContact)

rpm2cpio BSContact-7.1.07-4.i386.rpm | cpio -imV

Move to /opt:

mv opt/BSContact /opt
rmdir opt

Tell Ubuntu it's there.

SETUP_INSTALLPATH=/opt/BSContact SETUP_OPTIONTAGS=icons /opt/BSContact/bin/postinstall --root --create icons

Serving X3D contents

Any web-server can serve X3D contents for stand-alone usage. You only have to make sure to configure the following mime-types in your web server:

 .x3dv  model/x3d+vrml
 .x3d   model/x3d+xml
 .x3db  model/x3d+binary

Alive multi user server software

Dead multi user servers

It seems to Daniel K. Schneider that it will take time to attract more open source developers or companies to develop VRML/X3D-based multi-user servers. The ongoing pattern since the mid-1990's seems to be announcements, prototypes and then death of both the product and the companies. However, given that 3D is a "niche market" this is not too surprising. Let's recall the fate of some major technologies. IE (as of March 2009) still cannot handle XHTML and does not implement SVG. The SVG implementation of Firefox is partial only (doesn't include the "SMIL" tags. Firefox does not implement SMIL. Correct implementations of CSS3 and XSL-FO real-time players are other sore issues...

One reason why VRML and X3D is less popular than the sum of proprietry formats (in particular gaming engines) might be that other engines are optimized for speed. X3D, on the other hand, is much more flexible, in a scene any property of any object can change at any time (even if the user can't see the thing). Optimizing players to deal with lots of potentially changing geometry is already difficult. Now, propagating changes in multi-user environment over the Internet multiplies this challenge.

However, sticking to standards still seems to be best solution since code can be reused. Lively, Google's Flash 3D-based (?) chat environment, was terminated on december 2008. It would be interesting to know the reasons. The Palace (an early 2D environment) is dead. Active Worlds (the "second life of the late nineties) seems to be the only commercial proprietry 3D server that managed to stay alive over the years. It's too early to predict the fate of Second Life. It does look like a huge digital desert to me, but it may survive because of some specialized activities like fashion shows or virtual sex. The difference between Active Worlds and Second Life is that Active Worlds Inc. also sells servers you can install on your own machines. You also may consult 3D interactive environments for a longer list.

Below are some recently dead projects (probably the links are dead too now)

Vivaty

Vivaty offers an online 3D chat service with a similar developer model as Second Life, but it's based on a real standard and therefore your contents can outlive the platform. It runs under Vista/XP as Firefox or IE plugin. You can design your own X3D scenes and then import to their server. There is also an interface with Facebook and AIM.

Vivaty Create (Developer home page)
Vivaty blog
Vivaty Scenes (Firefox add on, beta on feb 2009. Before, there was only an IE version.)

Vivaty closed on april 16, 2010 “The company’s revenue, pegged on the sales of its virtual currency Vivabux, was not substantial enough to cover its costs.” [1]. “Jay Weber, chief technical officer and co-founder, announced on the company’s blog that the site will close because its business of letting users create their own 3D virtual spaces has never taken off.” [2], retrieved 12:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC).

Mediamachines Flux World

In march 2007 Mediamachines announced Flux World (announcement March 2007), a server technology based Simple Wide Area Multi-User Protocol, or SWMP (pronounced "swamp"). The company is now gone and its assets went to Vivaty, e.g. the excellent Vivati Studio X3D authoring tool (formerly "Flux studio"). Vivaty then died on April 2010. No trace of the multi-user server. The free (but not opensource) X3D authoring tool may still be available from some places.

Blaxxun

[www.blaxxun.com/ Blaxxun] was one of the first VRML-based systems. The company at some point went broke in the early 2000's, but was alive again (2007) and dead again (2010?). I suspect that most of it's assets now belowng

[www.blaxxuntechnologies.com/ Blaxxun technologies] (info about servers)
[community.blaxxun.com/ community.blaxxun.com]
Cybertown one of the blaxxun-based worlds (still alive in 2010).

Authoring tools

Then, check the web3d.org website. It has a good list of tools for X3D Development including a comparison of four authoring tools.

Modeling tools

See also 3D modeling. Several 3D modeling tools can export to X3D. Many X3D designers use a normal 3D or CAD modeling tool for creating individual objects and then export/import to a X3D structure editor (or X3D-aware programming editor) to build a scene.

Seamless3d, a free, open source 3D modeling software free and available for all under the MIT license. Can export to VRML, X3D XML and POV-RAY, imports VRML and X3D VRML. The Interface is a bit unusual, but (probably) easy to learn. Tutorials are provided. (testing, to do)

Combined Modeling / behaviors and scripting tools with a GUI

Vivati Studio (dead link) is from a company of the same name that died on April 16 2010. This product used to be called Flux studio before summer 2008. Vivatiy Studio was free for personal use! Authoring included modeling, animating, and scripting. Imports from other applications such as Sketchup, 3ds, Maya, Blender, and Unreal.
- This tool is no longer avaiable from any official web site, but copies may float around .... We tested Studio Version 1.0 (forked from Flux 2.0) on Vista 32bit/ and Windows 7/64 bit. Runs fine on both.
- Flux (software) (Wikipedia)
- You Say You Want A Revolution? Well... by Len Bullard, March 2007. (Flux Studio tutorial).

SwirlX3D, 129 CAN$. This is a successor of popular Spazz3D

AC3D, Commercial (free trial). 3D modeler/editor that can export to X3D.

Structure editors

X3D-Edit Authoring Tool for Extensible 3D (X3D) Graphics. Written in open-source Java and XML using the Netbeans 6.7 platform.
- X3D-Edit is a graphics file editor for Extensible 3D (X3D) that enables simple error-free editing, authoring and validation of X3D or VRML scene-graph files. Context-sensitive tooltips provide concise summaries of each VRML node and attribute. These tooltips simplify authoring and improve understanding for novice and expert users alike.

BS Editor. Commercial.
- “The BS Editor supports the application developer to program interactivity and behavior to objects and scenes. The geometry of 3D models shall be imported from leading authoring tools like 3ds max or Blender and can be integrated into applications by using BS Editor without notable VRML/X3D knowhow”, retrieved 11:20, 25 August 2010 (UTC).
Submarine X3D, a free very simple X3D Editor for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows by Andrea Nardinocchi from University of Padua.
For handcoding X3D, one also can use any XML editor that supports DTD or XSD, e.g. Xemacs.

Conversion, exporting and importing software

crossroads (Win only). “converts anything to everything and back again.”
BS Exporter for Blender.

Links

General / Indexes

web3D Consortium Home Page
- X3D resources from web3D (Applications, Players and Plugins for X3D / VRML Viewing) X3D Page from DR
VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) and X3D (Cover page)

Specifications

Main

X3D and Related Specifications Page at web3d.org

Alternative sites

X3D Wiki at web3D. A nice alternative to the specification ! Hopefully this will evolve [1/2006]

More (extensions, additional)

X3dom is an attempt started in 2010 to integrate X3D with HTML5. “X3DOM (pronounced X-Freedom) is an experimental open source framework and runtime to support the ongoing discussion in the Web3D and W3C communities how an integration of HTML5 and declarative 3D content could look like. It tries to fulfill the current HTML5 specification for declarative 3D content and allows including X3D elements as part of any HTML5 DOM tree.” ([X3Dom.org], retrieved 12:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)). Alpha implementations work with browers that implement WebGL (e.g. Firefox 4.0 Beta as of Aug 2010).
See the X3dResources' Authoring Support section for additional resources (e.g. additional Schematron validation).

Developer communities

WBandD (VRML-X3d.ning)

Overviews and comparisons

Developing Web Applications with COLLADA and X3D by Dr. Rémi Arnaud and Tony Parisi, 2007.

Tutorials

(all retrieved Aug. 2010)

It may be a good idea to understand some very basic 3D principles, e.g. read How 3-D Graphics Work from how stuff works.

See also the resources to Learn X3D (web|3D Consortium)

Extensible 3D: XML Meets VRML xml.com tutorial by Len Bullard, Aug 2003

Extensible 3D Graphics for Web Authors, course slidesets by Bon Brutzman

Course Videos: X3D for Web Authors by Don Brutzman. (several vido lessons that support the textbook X3D: Extensible 3D Graphics for Web Authors)

The public X3D wiki contains tutorials for X3D Nodes and concepts.

Instant reality tutorials (however, some stuff only works with the the InstantReality player).

Examples

There are many X3D/VRML examples on the web. However, many links collections and archives die or are not maintained. We shall add some more here, but maintaining links in web 3D is a nightmare (since most 3D Companies go broke after 3 or 5 years ....)

Simple examples (typically showing a single X3D feature)

Examples (X3D consortium resources). Follow up the links.

Example collections

X3D Sample Models and Content (Web|3D Consortium)
X3D Showcases (also Web|3D Consortium)
BS Contact demos
Examples (Daly Realism, Inc.)

Projects

On-A-Slant Virtual Village. Interactive X3d. A Social Science Education Project.

Of student projects

Educational Web3D, by Stephen Guynup, 15th ACM Conference on Web 3D Technlogy. Includes a description of a class and pointers to student projects.

References

Brutzman, Don (2008), Computer Graphics Teaching Support using X3D: Extensible 3D Graphics for Web Authors, Nava Postagraduate School,

tzman, Don, and Daly, Leonard, X3D: Extensible 3D Graphics for Web Authors, Morgan Kaufmann Publishing, 2007. 468 pages Book website

Chittaro, L. and R. Rano (editors) (2007). Web3D Technologies in Learning, Education and Training, Computers & Education Volume 49, Issue 1, Pages 1-130 (August 2007). Table of Contents. The introductory article is availabe as preprint from [HCI Lab].

Daly, Leonard and Brutzman, Don, âX3D: Extensible 3D Graphics Standard,â Standards in a Nutshell column, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 24 no. 6, November 2007, pp. 130-133.Y

Davis, Wiki A. (2007), The frontier of education: Web 3D, The Cool Cat Teacher, Blog Entry. HTML

Weber, Jay C. and Tony Parisi (2007.). An open protocol for wide-area multi-user X3D, Proceedings of the twelfth international conference on 3D web technology, ACM Press, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1229390.1229413 (Access restricted).

Osvaldo Gervasi, Donald P. Brutzman (Eds.): Proceeding of the Twelfth International Conference on 3D Web Technology, Web3D 2007, Perugia, Italy, April 15-18, 2007. ACM 2007, ISBN 978-1-59593-652-3 TOC.

@@ Line 141: / Line 141: @@
 * Bitmanagement was founded by former Blaxxun employees in 2002, i.e. the whole client team who then started working first on further developing the client, now know as BS Contact.
 * Pricing is as steep as in the Blaxxun days (around 20'000 Euros), but a trial version is available.
+; X3Daemon 3D Multiuser Network Server (beta)
+{{quotation|X3Daemon is middleware commercially available to developers, and is freely available to Office Towers  users...}} (not tested, except for at look at [http://www.officetowers.com/ officetowers])
+* [http://www.x3daemon.com/ x3daemon home] page.
 === Dead multi user servers ===