Review Of 3D Web Browsers

shelflife points to this very intersting article on the 3D Web browsers in Scientific American. He writes that of the 3D systems mentioned, "A Swiss company, Geonova (www.geonova.ch), seems to demonstrate best that the idea of a geography-based Web is feasible with today's PCs. Engineers there created two impressively detailed models of Switzerland--one of the entire nation with 25-meter resolution and another of two central cantons at 50-centimeter resolution. .. Text and iconic labels hovered quite legibly above towns, lakes, companies and tourist attractions; clicking on the labels opened associated Web pages. What other 3D browsers are there -- VRML plugins have been around a while -- yet they do not seem to be successful. Why is that?"

Comments

Why not VRML? VRML sucks.

[RobertGraham]

The question in the article was: VRML plugins have been around a while -- yet they do not seem to be successful. Why is that?

This isn't a flame, but the answer is simply that nobody likes VRML. People think that things are successful because of some other force than people like something. This can be true in rare cases (huge marketing campaigns like Nike's can change what people want), but ultimately, if something isn't successful, then it is because people don't want it.

The real question is: why don't people like VRML? Well, load it up yourself and view 3D worlds. Now play Quake. The VRML experience is unsatisfying, but Quake is fun.

Here are some basic reasons why VRML fails to stimulate people:

• Navigation sucks. The controls were built for people who wanted to model 3D objects from the outside, they weren't built for people who wanted to navigate the intireors of dungeons. Few people wanted to look at the 3D objects, most people want to fly through objects.
• VRML worlds sucked. Because of (or causing) the navigation problems, most VRML were objects you attempted to manipulate rather than 3D worls you could fly through.
• VRML didn't grok "cyberspace". Go to old VRML design documents and read the description of how they define "cyberspace", then read William Gibson's defition (or any cyberpunk definition). The VRML group was trying to model the real 3D world and objects, trying to make the PC model reality. People don't want this -- they want the computer to do stuff that you can't do in the real world. Doing real world stuff is easier in the real world -- VRML brought nothing new that the real world didn't have to offer. (This is why Quake is fun: it isn't the real world -- I love the low-grave levels :-)
• Poor leadership. Read Mark Piesce's old writings and contrast with Linus/ESR's writings. Piesce is a petulant child compared to the maturity of Linus/ESR/Cox/etc. Emotional ranting is popular in forums like Slashdot, but leaders who behave that way hurt their projects.

The real answer is that 3D has taken over the world and become the driving force behind computers (e.g. 3D cards in computers have more gates than CPUs). The 3D market has expanded hugely fast. There are those that figured out how to catch the wave (John Carmack @ Id) and those that failed to grok what was going on (Mark Piesce w/ VRML). One of these days we'll see some interesting 3D technology added to browsers; it won't look like VRML, it might look like Quake/Doom or Flight Simulator, or it might be something completely different.

Re:Why not VRML? VRML sucks.

[istartedi]

As someone a little bit closer to this issue (check webpage) this is why I think VRML failed.

1. VRML-97 is not a superset of VRML-1. There are features in VRML-1 that don't convert easily to VRML-97 so people who started with VRML-1 had to re-do a lot of stuff by hand. That discouraged a lot of the early movers.

2. The VRML-97 specification specified too many things that didn't need to be specified (like text layout, which looks crappy in VRML anyway) and initially failed to specify some things very well. There was some question about what scripting should be used at first, later Java and ECMAScript worked their way in but that leads me to...

3. It duplicated things that could be done with other things. In particular, you can do a lot of 3d with Java, and if you are going to use Java to script your VRML world anyway you might as well just do everything in Java which leads me to...

4. Crappy installed base. Really weak VRML browser shipped with IE and Netscape died before its decision could have made any impact.

5. Somewhat different computing paradigm. The VRML file contains "sensors" which trigger events that are processed by scripts. In other words, the data drives the code instead of the code driving the data. Is it a file format? A programming language? What is it? I'll tell you, introducing a different way of computing is fine, but they didn't pitch it that way, which tells me that it was more of an accident. It's always a bad sign when different ways of doing things get introduced by accident.

6. Bloated syntax. I know I'll catch it from some people for this, but I stand by it. Why was the proposal for VRML-97 called VRML-2? I'll tell you: because it has twice as many brackets and braces as VRML-1, and it doesn't really make things any easier to read.

7. Performance, performance, performance. A few months ago someone on comp.lang.vrml posted something that looked like a simple Quake level. It ran at 1 FPS on my box in a tiny little window. The same box runs Quake full screen at least 24 FPS, probably more but I can't tell and I don't care because Quake looks fine. The VRML performance problem is intractable too, because it doesn't have any standard way to do BSP or any of the other tricks that games do.

There are probably other reasons too; that's just the top of my list. Oh well, I had a lot of fun with it in the early days, and I learned a lot coding for it but it is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. I use my VRML program mostly to create animated GIFs and for photo-shop like effects (layering translucent PNGs and taking screen shots is cool) and I keep the web page up because I hate to kill stuff. I harbor no delusions. VRML will never see mass appeal. It seems to have carved out a niche in some government and academic circles, but there is no excitement there, no profit, and not much life.

I can prove that VRML will never catch on...

[aiken_d]

There is no VRML porn.

'nuff said.

-b