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You're confusing this "XML3D" with X3D. I don't think they're related. And your comparison to XHTML is a bit off. X3D isn't a dead end. It's an ISO standard based on VRML and already widely used. X3D (or a subset) already runs in browsers via a Javascript interpreter: X3DOM. There are proposals to integrate it with HTML5. It's pretty neat. I don't see why we should introduce yet another 3D XML dialect.

You're confusing this "XML3D" with X3D. I don't think they're related. And your comparison to XHTML is a bit off. X3D isn't a dead end. It's an ISO standard based on VRML and already widely used. X3D (or a subset) already runs in browsers via a Javascript interpreter: X3DOM. There are proposals to integrate it with HTML5. It's pretty neat. I don't see why we should introduce yet another 3D XML dialect.

The entire internet would have been like Second Life :)

I remember downloading VRML browsers back in late 90's and thinking it was the future of the "web".

Virtual Reality Markup Language

In 1997, a new version of the format was finalized, as VRML97 (also known as VRML2 or VRML 2.0), and became an ISO standard. VRML97 was used on the Internet on some personal homepages and sites such as "CyberTown", which offered 3D chat using Blaxxun Software. The format was championed by SGI's Cosmo Software; when SGI restructured in 1998 the division was sold to Platinum Technologies

Anyone interested in reading up on some of the old stuff can check out the Web3D Consortium: http://www.web3d.org/x3d/vrml/index.html

Of course I was in my 20's, and late 90's everything kept promising "virtual reality" and I had dreams of surfing the web would be like walking down a sidewalk, other people "surfing" you would see on the sidewalks as well, and if you wanted to visit a computer store then it would have a 3d representation 'building' to walk in, browse the shelves "virtually", chat with other customers in the store.

hehe talk about delusions of grandeur back then, but yea for about a year or two I actually thought that VRML would take over and make HTML and the web as we know it obsolete.

This will never take off. Has anybody ever heard of XML3D? Where's the spec? Will this ever become a standard when there are already zillions of 3D markup formats around?
And it needs a custom browser build. Remember how 3D that required browser plugins failed back in the 90s? Now it's not even a plugin, they want you to install their browser. To view nonexistant content in a format nobody has ever heard of.
What's wrong with existing standards? WebGL, X3D. Inline X3D is the way to go according to the HTML5 spec. It already works in all WebGL-enabled browsers (alpha builds of Firefox, Webkit and Chrome). The difference is that this approach is entirely standards-based, X3D is an established standard, and WebGL is being implemented in most browsers right now.

How is HTML5 any more of a "standard" that VRML was?

Who cares? X3D is an ISO standard developed in an open process. http://www.web3d.org/x3d/

Regardless, what you've said still doesn't change the fact that this is generally a useless technology.

That's what people said about 3d desktops, now every major OS has some 3d elements in the UI. I don't see an immersive 3d environment in a browser, but I do see 3d elements being useful for the display of some types of data, and navigating through certain types of datasets.

Most video operations don't benefit at all from 3D graphics; they inherently need 2D acceleration.

If you can put a video on a 3d surface, you can pipe it through the GPU to speed up deinterlacing, interpolation, scaling, etc... All modern video acceleration schemes use the GPU anyways, having a separate processor do all the heavy video processing doesn't make sense these days.

It's a novelty that's bound to resurface every 15 years or so, as people forget the experiments and failures of the previous generation of developers.

I don't think the X3D working group has completely forgotten the past failures of in-browser 3d, which is why X3D is not VRML, though it maintains backwards compatibility.

This is about Try #4 for 3D on the Web. Web3D was an XML representation of VRML. Unfortunately, the effect of the Web3D consortium was to kill VRML in favor of a vaporware concept.

3D in the browser is done well in Macromedia Shockwave. Try this 3D driving game. The Shockwave player is supposedly available on 58% of PCs. Some versions of Shockwave even had the Havok physics engine, but Macromedia stopped paying Havok for the license and took that out.

The main problem with Shockwave is that it doesn't start as fast as Flash does. Flash has a nice scheme for interleaving the timeline and the asset data, so that playing starts very quickly. At least if the content is authored properly. Also, Shockwave authoring tools are expensive.

About Java 3D, the less said, the better.

The problem with offering OpenGL access to Javascript is that Javascript isn't a good language for fast matrix math. Also, authoring tools will have to be developed. You can't effectively author 3D content in a text editor.

There are already plenty of ways to put "3D on the Web".

• Shockwave. Like Flash, but has a full 3D engine. Some versions even had the Havok physics engine. Never became as popular as Flash, but there are some good casual games in it.
• VRML. It works now. In 1997, few PCs had enough graphics hardware to run VRML well. Now they do. Nobody uses it any more, but it wasn't a bad idea. It was just too early.
• X3D, or "Web3D". This is simply VRML in XML syntax. The XML crowd took over VRML and tried to turn it into a spinning-logo system. Nobody uses this, and the transition killed VRML.
• Java 3D. (Well, Sun screwed that up, but it can still be run.)
• SolidWorks Viewer. Like Adobe Acrobat for engineers. Making a model requires expensive SolidWorks, but the 3D viewer is free. Widely used by people who make real stuff.

I'm already living Web 3D... you guys need to catch up.

On second thought --- don't. The 3D spaces are now much like the internet was back in the late '80s - a more equitable balance of signal to noise.

VRML was supposed to be replaced by X3D, which is simply VRML 97 with XML delimiters instead of VRML delimiters. "Spinning logos in only 40 bytes" were promised. That went nowhere for years. But, surprisingly, it's coming back. But for completely different applications. Not virtual worlds, but 3D images of industrial gear.

I certainly agree with others that this "smells" like a scam. But if this is a scam, then what are other projects aiming to unify the "3D Web" with a proprietary platform centrally-owned by a single entity? Since Second Life is the subject of so much negative attention lately, let's use them as an example. Are they really so different than IAVRT?

Second Life claims to provide a platform that can grow to handle the demands of the metaverse, yet their servers can handle only a few active users at a time. Second Life has at most tens of thousands of users online at any point in time, about the same number of users handled by a single (2D) web server. Many websites use hundreds of these servers to handle their traffic demands! That means for Second Life to handle load comparable with a single 2D website (or a single island in their model), they would need to be several hundred times larger, and this doesn't even begin to address the additional demands required for exchanging 3D assets.

Second Life could never possibly scale to meet the demands of a real metaverse. Yet they continue to attract big companies using inflated numbers and over-hyped potential (and because frankly, with all its problems, Second Life is still the best thing available). But enough about Second Life. The same things can be said of pretty much any 3D web platform company trying to lock-in customers to their proprietary systems. Despite that IAVRT is a "not-for-profit" organization, and the Neuronet's lack of technical feasibility (among other things) does make it "smell" like a scam, I would be inclined to group IAVRT into this camp.

One thing I do agree with the IAVRT on is that there is a need to establish open protocols to build a shared platform for the 3D web. However, I can think of no technical reason this cannot or should not take the form of an extension to the existing Internet. There is no need for a new physical network and no need for a new registry authority. There may be an argument to be made for an organization to rally these efforts. However, I'm more inclined support an extension from an existing reputable organization like the Web3D Consortium.

Nowadays, rallying also does not necessarily require money. It can be performed using just a community portal website. I've recently assembled a portal just for this purpose at web3d.net and I'd like to invite anyone interested to come participate. And don't worry, there are no membership fees involved <g>.

You might want to let these people know...

No need to promote some flash of 3D when the stadard already exist:

X3D (the newly born vrml) seems quite good for 3D: http://www.web3d.org/

Many tools around it, reader for pretty much all browser and all platform, authoring tools with different scope in mind, etc...

Now for SVG (and X3D/VRML?) authoring, you do have some tools: http://www.w3.org/Amaya/

The market isn't there yet, that's why they aren't widespread IMHO

Back in the late 1990s and earily 2000s, I used a VRML plug-in for the Windows version of Mozilla called Blaxxun Contact. I think when X3D came along and replaced the VRML97 standards (both defined by The Web3D Consortium, things became confusing. Of course there are other graphics standards such as OpenGL and SVG that are also used. DirectX will slow you down.

Yes I remember VRML. I also remember ten years ago we didn't have GPU's like we do now.

People are trying to bring 3D to the web, like curl and X3D for example. The story also mentions that Croquet may be a possability.

First thing I like about 1.5 is that SVG is now supported. The Second thing I like about 1.5 is the 3D Canvas FPS Engine. What will really win me over is if they offered VRML/X3D support.

I'm taking a peek at the source codes for this web page and they are very well written. He says it does not have much direction at this time. On the contrary. This project has much potential.

SGI put out some increadibly cool technologies:

OpenGL - a very important 3D API

The Standard Template Library

VRML which gave rise to X3D Open Inventor which is a C++ wrapper around OpenGL.

Pretty purple boxen that were great in their day.

It seems that these came out years before the average user could really leverage them - years before anyone (including SGI it seems) knew what to do with them.

It seems a shame that such a brilliant company could have such a hard time making money. They made the world a better place though, IMHO.

Proprietary? VRML is an ISO/IEC standard.

The X in X3D stands for eXtensible. It includes a mechanism for extensions and profiles (which are sets of extensions on top of whichever core profile you choose). This shortcuts the long ISO standards cycle. So if you want to support IK, morph targets, physics, whatever: you write the extension, implement it, and propose it for inclusion in the next ISO round.

For example, there's a Web3D working group adding programmable shaders to X3D right now. I've seen two separate running implementations; all the cute features of the new graphics cards. Shiny chrome! Rust! Toons! Wheeee!

Sure, this is a non-trivial amount of work, but it's easier than any other way you could do this. You don't have to reinvent the core profile, so you can concentrate on your extensions. You'll get feedback from other consortium members, which will probably actually improve your new profile. You can build on the work of others, and others can build on your work.

Web3D consortium membership is cheap. For individuals it's $100, and for corporations it's way less than W3C for example.

It's possible that Sony's Collada will take off; if it turns out as open as they're saying, I think it will. I've seen too many proprietary Web3D formats backed by big names fail to expect that path to ever work. If Collada does take off - great! It's XML as well, transforms to and from X3D should be very straightforward.

Maybe not, but you most certainly do on your file format. You don't need to release any new code, and you can change the format any time you want.

I fail to see how the GTO format and associated code could not be continued by any number of other people if they so choose.

Oh, they certainly could. However, if the code is incompatible with new products, and the new format is unknown, this causes a problem for end users.

And finally, I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to exchange 3D geometric and animation data over a network using XML -- especially in a human readable form.

Amen. They justify it this way. Apparently they are working on a binary format.

If there was ever a less appropriate use of XML I can't think of it.

XML excels at being used inappropriately.

Maybe not, but you most certainly do on your file format. You don't need to release any new code, and you can change the format any time you want.

I fail to see how the GTO format and associated code could not be continued by any number of other people if they so choose.

Oh, they certainly could. However, if the code is incompatible with new products, and the new format is unknown, this causes a problem for end users.

And finally, I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would want to exchange 3D geometric and animation data over a network using XML -- especially in a human readable form.

Amen. They justify it this way. Apparently they are working on a binary format.

If there was ever a less appropriate use of XML I can't think of it.

XML excels at being used inappropriately.

A binary format for X3D is being defined. X3D supports multiple file encodings describing the same abstract model.

But nowadays everything has got to be XML, even if it does not make any sense at all

The XML encoding enables smooth integration with web services and cross-platform inter-application file and data transfer. An excellent idea, surely. See the X3D FAQ for more details.

OK - how's this?

Back in April, Slashdot reported the announcement of a Universal 3D File Format by Intel, Microsoft & others - to be "as open as MP3". Of course, that's not all that open. And this turns out to be the sneaky part. There is a real open standard already - X3D is ISO-ratified, royalty-free, and has multiple open source implementations. U3D is "going to be submitted to ISO" - one day - but right now they're talking to ECMA, which allows royalty-bearing patents.
I found this article by Tony Parisi, co-chair of the X3D Working Group a fascinating insider's picture of the standards wars, along with insights into what it takes to release an online game, what really killed VRML, and why open standards do (and don't) matter.
I mean, a royalty-bearing, pseudo-open universal 3D format from Intel and Microsoft? Sorry, guys. That trick doesn't work anymore


BTW, I need to get a life.

OK - how's this?

Back in April, Slashdot reported the announcement of a Universal 3D File Format by Intel, Microsoft & others - to be "as open as MP3". Of course, that's not all that open. And this turns out to be the sneaky part. There is a real open standard already - X3D is ISO-ratified, royalty-free, and has multiple open source implementations. U3D is "going to be submitted to ISO" - one day - but right now they're talking to ECMA, which allows royalty-bearing patents.
I found this article by Tony Parisi, co-chair of the X3D Working Group a fascinating insider's picture of the standards wars, along with insights into what it takes to release an online game, what really killed VRML, and why open standards do (and don't) matter.
I mean, a royalty-bearing, pseudo-open universal 3D format from Intel and Microsoft? Sorry, guys. That trick doesn't work anymore


BTW, I need to get a life.

VRML was cool. It evolved into X3D, which is still being developed, still being supported by software, and still has web presence here.

It's mystifying that it never took off, because I always figured X3D is a superset of SVG, since you should be able to draw any 2D image using a 3D model, right?

And so much Flash these days is simulating a 3D look by doing all the calculations and displaying 2D polygons. It would be much better if they would just use the real thing.

Java 3D uses scenegraph and branchgroup concepts, exactly like VRML. It is a "higher level" 3D language than OpenGL, and therefore C+OpenGL and Java 3D are not (maybe just for now) in the same playing fields.
Where Java3D should thrive now is rapid developpement of possibly complex 3D scenes. We're not talking of a game with pixel shaders, but for example of a simulator of a robot with a manipulating arm. The scenegraph would make it very easy to set up the arm articulations quickly.
Given the current sorry state of VRML browsers, and the immaturity of X3D, the release of Java3D could give birth to very interestings developements.
For complex game development in Java, look for Java OpenGL bindings instead.

A few references:
Scenegraph basics
X3D

The web is much more than HTML these days

Today, the web is HTML and images. Tomorrow, standars like SMIL, SVG and X3D might take multimedia to the web.

Flash is focused on presentation, not on content nor navigation, it cannot replace HTML, and it's breaking navigation, usability and accesibility.

Flash must complement HTML like JPG/GIF did.

And the successor to VRML even has "extensible" as part of its name (X3D). Unfortunately the "working group" sucks. Every few weeks the format/API is changed. The decission process is painfully slow, driven by hackers and clueless academic types who like to meet at conferences to present their next (useless) 3d interface. And yes, I co-authored a paper for InfoVis so I kind of know the insights.

The XML-based format is X3D. X3D is VRML in XML syntax. X3D came along during the dot-com boom, when it was thought that 3D web pages would be cool. The X3D effort killed off VRML, just when everybody was getting enough graphics power that it really worked. (VRML sucked in 1997 unless you had a very exotic computer. Today, VRML works great, but nobody uses it.)

Too late.

There is one in the works - There's a CAD profile of the X3D standard that is currently being worked on by the Web3d Consortium. The primary purpose is for data interchange at the DCC tool level so that CAD content can be taken and repurposed for tasks like training manuals, applications and online display. Every major CAD vendor as well as all the other tool vendors (Autodesk, Alias etc etc) are involved. The standard is underway and the first draft to be added to the ISO process should be ready in the next month or so.

X3D is finally starting to get support by some software

X3D homepage:
http://www.web3d.org/

They do seem to be backed by some large companies.

I've never seen MS talk about "chrome" before

Really?

Their "Chrome" stuff predates Mozilla. Although they're not using the word in that context.

1998 references to Chrome from Microsoft

The games seem to be sponsored by a company to promote it's proprietary 3D graphics technology. (Please do not confuse this company named "X3D" with the candidate ISO standard X3D, which is a new, expanded version of VRML).

I looked around the site, but couldn't find a single screenshot of the 3D graphics. All of the images are standard 2D chessboard diagrams, even the playback applet.

The best I could find was a monitor on the edge of a photo of Miss NYC in stereo glasses. Seemed like a fairly good looking chess set.... but it would be nice to see some animated playback, in the correct time! I thought "X3D" was trying to promote it's technology, but I can't see any of it.

Anyone catch it on ESPN2? Did they show the gfx there at all?

Manipulating chess pieces that way is just silly.

Who are those X3D guys, anyway? Just to confuse everything, there's an X3D consortium. A few years ago, the angle bracket police decided to convert VRML to XML syntax. Unfortunately, nobody cared about VRML by then.

It's somewhat elitist and "OWNED", but you can say the same sort of thing about other online games. Sometimes it takes a company that's in it for the money to make a solid entertainment product. Other times, this fails horribly. Haven't tried There, so I can't say where they're headed.

As for an open 3D worlds system, it's a fine idea, but would require a lot of focused work (far more than, say, creating a MUD or the like). VRML collapsed under the weight of 'too many cooks', although X3D is alive and kicking. Even with X3D, a great client application, and serious server hardware, it would still take a large number of "clever hackers" to maintain a "open 3D world" system.

Good points to think about.

I'd settle for eliminating plug-ins entirely, but solidifying support for W3C standards such as SVG and X3D.

With some work in ECMAscript (Javascript), dynamic illustrations in SVG could be turned into the various widgets that people expect from a modern GUI, but they'd be built-in to a browser and be cross-platform.

Then IE, Mozilla, Opera and anyone else would be free to implement renderers and interactors without fearing whether they're infringing on someone's patent.

Widespread adoption of these standards for interactive and scalable graphics would be a tremendous benefit in getting rid of all the various paper-centric publishing solutions that plague us today.

Right. VRML is a markup language, not a pseudonym for MMORPGs... And you're right, they went away -- because in my opinion, the language was a flop.

Like Java, VRML was an idea marketed before its time. When it first appeared, VRML browsers were bulky add-ins for your web browser, slow and prone to errors. The concept is that you define geometry objects in space using a scripting language much like HTML; just download a model and render locally instead of a big bitmap. However, this was software renderering -- they were competing with the first 3d accellerated video cards, and frankly, they lost.

The idea was to create 3d avatars to represent yourself in a chatroom... Interesting ideas, but people were happy with just getting a lo-res icon to represent their personalities (AIM)... and the rest of us never needed anything beyond text to represent our chat.

Do note the Copyright terms for the vrml Universal Media: http://www.web3d.org/WorkingGroups/media/textures/ copyright.htm. Basically, the various original artists retain copyright, and you can use them if they remain together as the "Universal Media" package, but you cannot redistribute them seperately.

reed

VRML has a standard texture set (the idea is that it is stored locally, so they don't need to be downloaded from the network). It's not that large, but there are a couple things in there and maybe you could add some. http://www.web3d.org/WorkingGroups/media/

There is also a listing here of image libraries: http://web3d.org/vrml/txlib.htm if you find some good ones you should submit them to this listing.

Some guy also has made a ton of really strange tilable images, in a collection called Propaganda:
http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/

reed

VRML has a standard texture set (the idea is that it is stored locally, so they don't need to be downloaded from the network). It's not that large, but there are a couple things in there and maybe you could add some. http://www.web3d.org/WorkingGroups/media/

There is also a listing here of image libraries: http://web3d.org/vrml/txlib.htm if you find some good ones you should submit them to this listing.

Some guy also has made a ton of really strange tilable images, in a collection called Propaganda:
http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/

reed

Noone else is using it, anyway

It maneuvers like crap

There's alternatives much simplier than virtual reality

Basically, people aren't using it because there's no advantage of doing so. Those that are using it are, from what I've seen, much more social than the typical geek.

When will we see a world that provides both quality, as well as a reason to stay? Only MMORPGs seem to be providing it today.

(Then again, I haven't stepped into a chat-oriented world in a few years, so I don't know of any particular trends.. YMMV.)

a brief perousal of the PDF shows that this is a
working group within the web3d consortium..

more info is available at:

http://www.web3d.org/fs_workinggroups.htm

X3D is definitely a solution looking for a problem. The Web3D crowd basically killed VRML by announcing their "new, improved, XML-based solution", used by nobody, supported by nobody, and with very little active work. If you get their SDK disks, it's mostly old VRML stuff and old Java3D stuff. This was sad, because it happened just about when hardware got good enough to do VRML properly. VRML over broadband with a current-generation OpenGL board works quite well.

I haven't looked much at HOOPS, but it's a reasonable idea. IGES, the old FORTRAN-based interchange format (80 column lines, no less) is a bit dated.

People beieved in VRML: there were couple of books about it, there were browsers (plugins) for different platforms (of course also for Linux :), but probably the most successful was Cosmo player from SGI.

And here might be the answer: it might just died when SGI did.

So what happened to VRML?

This wasnt even close to the coolest thing at SIGGRAPH! Takeo Igarashi's work on predictive interfacing making easier 2d and 3d drawing tools was cooler. Digiplasty , a kind of 3d exquisite corpse as shown by Stewart and Makai was cooler. (For that matter the Studio, manned by Makai, Stewart, Scott and many others, where you could create 2d and 3d art and print 2d and 3d was AWESOME - you could work in there for hours, vs. the few seconds of playing with a silly virtual sword.) Scotts Dodecahedron was a wonderful example of taking something abstract and virtual and making it real and usable. Isa's overview of wearable tech and cyberfashion (she took out the notes, dammit!) was refreshing, if not so new to a frequent slashdotter. (She's a burner too!) Some of the mixed reality work being done at the University of Singapore was really neat. (This is an example of some of the most exciting stuff there. Several researchers showed some great work being done in augmented reality, and combining that with some of the reasonable priced wearable and wirelessable computing, we can see some real headway being made. One researcher even composites a virtual face back onto a fellow participant in the augemented reality environment, masking the HMD, even going so far as to track the eyes and simulate the gaze.) The results of last years meditation chamber research installation was an interesting and possibly VERY useful application of VR technology. W. Bradford Paley's work on applying alternative interfaces to explore other media was fascinating, where you can use this LARGE java tool named TextArc to examine graphically over 400 literary works. The Web3D Consortium's release of the final working draft of X3D (with tools) could end up being much more important than the newest video card from ATI. Dietmar Offenhuber's work on non-isotropic spaces at wegzeit was an interesting approach to mapping and representing real places. Zachary Simpson et al's delightfully simple shadow interactivity was many times more fun than the virtual swordfight. Fabric.ch's knowscape was also exciting, both for the viewers and the presenter, as he would find additions from his European counterparts each morning when he logged on to the shared 3d space. Kenneth Huff's beautiful art using maya was just one example of some wonderful digital work being done. Lastly, Michael J. Lyons soon-to-be-published research on the aesthetics of Tokyo's Kyoto Gardens was both informative and inspiring. And this is just a TINY PART of what happened there!

Really, SIGGRAPH was NOT just an exhibition floor with cheesey swag (although the little green LED lights were very nice) and some cool new toys. It was presentation after presentation by resesarchers, some barely able to speak engrish, but all excited about their work and open to collaboration. It was hours and hours of animation, some (Like Allain Escalle's "Le Conte du monde flottant") were so stunning as to make you forget where animation ended and life began. Disney's work on replacing one actors face with another, retaining ALL facial expression, was downright scary. And the Spiderman gag footage, his spidey-suit oddly replaced with a fully reflective silver surface, like most of the rest of SIGGRAPH'S less entertaining presentations, were surely an indication of things to come.
Take the time to go to SIGGRAPH2002 and look around. If you find something interesting, write the author. This is where the new VR and AR comes from - not ATI!

Those features, with names like "stencil," "destination alpha," "full-time multitexture"

Please note that MPEG-4 is much wider in scope than just video. It also specifies a lossy (quantized) 3D scene graph API, for example. See www.web3d.org for more information.

all the DivX:) crap is a TINY SUBSET of MPEG-4.

Have you all - gone - completely - insane?
VRML rules the Universe, and I will explain why.

There are comments that VRML is slower than specialised game engines. Well, duh. It's a general solution, they are specific solutions. There are many things that you can do in VRML that are not possible in game engines. For example, arbitrarily large worlds. Every object being active and scriptable. In the Quake engine, it's not possible to make a door rotate on its hinge. Quake only allows for sliding doors. In VRML, of course, any object can do anything. In Quake, the largest space you can make is the size of a dance hall. In VRML, you can make a space as big as the solar system, and zoom in to a grain of sand. If you've ever tried to use a game engine, you'll know; they're great within their constraints. But those constraints are severe.

VRML is the only general, extensible solution for VR. And it happens to be an open standard, controlled by a consortium with Open Source as a core part of its platform. It's come a long way since 1997. It's integrated into MPEG4 - go to The MPEG4 spec page and do a search for "VRML". It's been extended with NURBS, geospatial capabilities, and more. It's fully scriptable with Java, ECMAScript, and whatever else you want to plug into the open source.

There are comments here that what we need is and XML language for Web3D. OK, fine, you got it. VRML has an XML encoding; it's called X3D. The old encoding still works too.

It's out there now, being used in real applications to actually do stuff with VR beyond running around in a maze shooting blocky 256-colour monsters. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

If you want to know what's actually going on now, the best source for general Web3D info is Sandy Ressler's about.com site.

If you want cool tools for VRML, go to the new kings of Web3D - ParallelGraphics. They have authoring tools for Windows, and a browser for Mac and Windows. Unfortunately they are WinTel-centric, so no Linux, and no Mac authoring. Shout at them until they come around. Nicely, of course.

If you want a visual VRML authoring tool for Windows, go to Spazz3D, the most useful tool to ever have such a stupid name.

But this is Slashdot, so here's the dirt: for the Free Software/Open Source angle, go to OpenVRML. They have a browser for all major platforms, and if you don't like it, you can fix it yourself.

The XML solution on the horizon is X3D. This has a much better chance of being a useful 3D markup language because in most cases it would be only one representation of the base data among a set of alterantives including vector graphics (SVG) and XHTML.