Universal 3D File Format In The Works

telstar writes "The Register is reporting that more than 30 companies are working together to define a new file format intended to serve as a universal 3D file format. The new file format will be named the 'Universal 3D Format', or U3D. According to the article, they hope to make the new format as standard as MP3 has become for audio, and JPEG has become for 2D images. Interesting that they would choose two lossy media formats as models for comparison."

Comments

MP3 and JPEG

[Boing]

The lossiness of MP3 and JPEG was only relevant because it allowed the actual files to become small enough to transmit over slow connections and fit on small hard drives. Additionally, while they may be lossy, the "lost" information goes completely unnoticed by the end-user, 99.99% of the time. If they come up with a convenient way of storing 3D information that is "lossy" but doesn't lose anything that will be missed, then more power to them.

Additionally, the demand for small files, and therefore for MP3 and JPEG, draws on preexisting "content" sets that are enormous; all the audio data ever recorded (including in analog media), and all the static, 2D visual data ever recorded (including photos, texts, drawings, etc). By comparison, there are currently relatively few recordings of true 3D data; and the present uses of that recorded data are so specialized that a general file format would probably be insufficient anyway.

So the day that Wal-mart starts selling digital cameras that laser-scan the whole room and render a complete 3D model, and the day they start selling holographic projectors for those 3D models, at prices that are reasonable for personal use, then there will be a market for a generic 3D file format.

That must have been difficult...

[NIN1385]

"The Register is reporting that more than 30 companies are working together to define a new file format intended to serve as a universal 3D file format. The new file format will be named the 'Universal 3D Format', or U3D.

How the hell did they EVER think of that name...I mean, that is just as clever as you can get. They must have Harvard and Yale graduates thinking of that one all day.

Does this mean if an alien in another universe doesn't use this format that he/she/it will have compatibility issues? Will Earth be liable if they sue us for not offering support for the products they bought? Oh wait that is right, we live in a country that doesn't discipline a company for screwing over customers and not supporting their products, it rewards them with huge contracts and laws that favor them and only them. Us americans should be ok unless they decide to screw us over in yet another way, shape or form.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[Minna Kirai]

Microsoft did adopt an open file format: XML.

XML hardly deserves to be called a file format. To have any meaning, the term "file format" must be usable as a way to discuss what files a program is capable of understanding. If two programs are known to both use MP3 or both use JPG, then one can predict with high certainty that they are compatible on the file level.

But if all we know is that the programs both read XML data, then we actually know nothing about what they actually do.

It would be possible for Microsoft to use XML for everything, but still not make life any easier for outsiders trying to achieve compatibility.

We wouldn't claim "binary" is a file format, and we shouldn't call "XML" one either.

Saddam Hussein may not have been an imminent threat, but then again neither was Hitler.

By the time the USA took up arms against Hitler, he certainly wasn't imminent anymore- he was active. He'd already invaded 6 different US allies by the time they decided to join the fight against Germany.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[prisoner-of-enigma]

XML hardly deserves to be called a file format.

Regardless of whether or not you wish to deem it an acceptable file format, it is a file format that would allow anyone to open anywhere on any platform using any software, assuming that said software could properly parse the XML file. And the ability to parse that data is assured, since the file format is documented by Microsoft -- documents open to anyone and everyone, free of charge.

By the time the USA took up arms against Hitler, he certainly wasn't imminent anymore- he was active. He'd already invaded 6 different US allies by the time they decided to join the fight against Germany.

One is taken to wondering just how different things might've been if we'd shown more spine earlier as opposed to picking up the pieces later. Hundreds of thousands of lives might've been saved if Hitler had just known the Allies meant business. Instead, we sat around and let him get away with one international violation after another, each one emboldening him to take the next step. Churchill once said "At one point, a memo would've stopped Hitler." We stopped Saddam, but now we're being castigated for it. I imagine the same naysayers would've been present had we put a stop to Nazism back when it was in a nascent stage.

Your argument that Hitler was "active" gives lie to the silliness of avoiding pre-emptive warfare. Which is smarter, fighting a war when your enemy is weak or waiting until he is strong, bold, and has the initiative? Naysayers cling to the idea that pre-emptive war is folly. It's pity they haven't learned from history, because if they had their way, we'd all be doomed to repeat it.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[dolphinling]

Problem is, Hussein was never going to be "strong, bold, and have the initiative." He was the dictator of a small, poverty-ridden, country in which there were (at least) three very opposed different populations. Hitler was "dictator" of a larger, already strong, country, that was in a depression but by no means third-world, and was able to harness the emotions and power of practically the whole country to get what he wanted.

End result: Hitler was a threat to the US. Saddam wasn't. Hitler would have, eventually, gotten enough power to defeat the US if we hadn't joined the war in time. Saddam would have just sat there on his throne, killing off a few people (which a) we could have prevented in ways other than war, and b) was AFAIK fewer than are dying now due to the terrorists that weren't there before but are now and the worsened living conditions) and not posing any threat at all to us.

And as to pre-emptive war, the problem with it is that it sets a precedent for any other country that wants to start a pre-emptive war too. Because of that, there are a lot more wars total. And unless you happen to like war, I'm sure you'll agree that that's a bad thing.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[Minna Kirai]

it is a file format that would allow anyone to open anywhere on any platform using any software, assuming that said software could properly parse the XML file.

Flat-out wrong. The ability to parse a file doesn't imply that you can understand it!

One is taken to wondering just how different things might've been if we'd shown more spine earlier as opposed to picking up the pieces later.

By "spine", I assume you mean strictness or aggression. But actually, for optimal results, the Allies (US+UK+France) should've been more gentle earlier. Then WWII never would've happened. (I wouldn't expect you to understand what I mean without an uncommon knowledge of history)

Re:Microsoft's motive

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Flat-out wrong. The ability to parse a file doesn't imply that you can understand it!

parse ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pärs)
v. parsed, parsing, parses
v. tr.
1. To break down into its component parts with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.

So, tell me, if parsing isn't understanding the file, exactly what is your definition of parsing?

Sorry, you're wrong.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Problem is, Hussein was never going to be "strong, bold, and have the initiative." He was the dictator of a small, poverty-ridden, country in which there were (at least) three very opposed different populations.

I suppose it would be ridiculous for me to point out that, when Hitler came into power, Germany was a small, poverty-ridden country in which there were many different political factions (Democrats, Fascists, and Communists at the very least, as well as a religious party) vying for power.

The argument you're presenting is strikingly similar to the arguments I hear from clients about buying a UPS or tape backup system. If you buy the UPS, it may prevent a multimillion dollar computer outage at some point in the future. But if you prevent it, it never happens, and the beancounters will scream "but we spent $100,000 on this UPS and nothing happened!" If Saddam Hussein were destined to produce nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, then use them to blackmail the rest of the world on his terms, a pre-emptive invasion may have saved the world much hardship and bloodshed years from now. Instead, everyone's complaining he wasn't a threat. I'm just glad he got taken out before he was an imminent threat. We let Hitler germinate and it cost 100 million lives.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[drinkypoo]

If someone had just bought one of Hitler's crappy talentless paintings when he was in art school, possibly his ego would have been healthier, and we would never have had to deal with him in the first place.

While we knew about WWII atrocities long before we did anything and just discounted them (stupidly) out of hand, much as we had some idea pearl harbor was going to get bombed like sorority girls at a frat party, it doesn't change the fact that hindsight is 20/20.

These days such a thing could not trivially occur due to the level of international oversight which exists thanks to the global espionage community.

Re:Microsoft's motive

[Minna Kirai]

Minor nitpick, but Iraq has the 3rd largest reserve of oil. Not exactly 3rd world

Actually, that oil is part of what keeps Iraq (and many Middle Eastern nations) from developing "first world" status. If a nation possesses over-abundant salable natural resources, it has no incentive to develop the industrial economy required to support modern warfare is actually reduced.

This is an oversimplification, but to a first approximation, the citizens of an oil-rich nation don't actually have to work for a living. Taxes work backwards- every year the government pays you just for living there. (Alaska in the USA has a minor version of this system)

Compared to Iraq, places like Germany and especially Japan had negligble supplies of natural resources, which is why their people became (occasionally) such hard workers, and why they had the ambition to attempt global empire.

Fortunately this was not a pre-emtive war, it was a resumption of a previous conflict when one party failed to live up to the cease fire treaty.

With that claim, you are accusing the President of treason-level lying, because pre-emption was exactly the reason he gave for going to war.

Besides, the US was not a party to that agreement, It was been Iraq and the UN (of which US is just one member)! If the US had gone to the UN and properly demanded that either (a) sanctions against Iraq be dropped as ineffective, or (b) Iraq be forcibly put into compliance, then all indications are that UN approval would've come through by around February, 2004.

But that didn't mesh with Bush's schedule... he just couldn't wait. (The especially funny part is: if he did wait, then the war would be ongoing during the US Presidential elections, and voters prefer not to change the Commander-In-Chief during wartime)

Re:Microsoft's motive

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Obviously, we haven't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We haven't found any WMD programs. Right now, we're trying, and failing to find "WMD program related activities."

I'll point out that a bioweapons lab large capable of producing enough anthrax to annihilate a small city would be no larger than a truck trailer. We're still finding MiG's buried in the desert. Iraq is nearly 200,000 sq. miles in area. How hard would it be to hide something like that? If I told you there was a buried trailer somewhere in California with $1 million in it for you, and that's all you had to go on, how long would it take you to find it? Would you be so quick to say it doesn't exist?

Further, there is documented proof Hussein had WMD's at some point. The pictures of dead women and children in northern Iraq are irrefutable. Hussein had a lot of those weapons. Now we can't find them. Where did they go? If they were destroyed, why did Hussein refuse to provide proof of such? And they weren't beamed up by the starship Enterprise. The question you should be asking is "where did they go?" not "why did we invade in the first place?"

Again, Iraq had no WMDs, and showed no indication at all of wanting to attack us.

I point to my previous statement. Iraq did have the weapons as late as the early 90's. We know this from chemical residues found in bombed-out weapons bunkers. But there weren't enough bunkers found to account for all the stuff he had acquired during the Iran-Iraq war...and we know how much he had because we gave some of it to him. Again, where did it go? It didn't get used up in the war. It didn't get poured down the drain. Where did it go? You can't answer that question, so you just jump to the nearest, most naive conclusion: they never existed. Too bad there's ample proof to prove you wrong. The WMD's may not be in Iraq anymore, but they're somewhere.

As for Saddam's intentions to attack us, I would hope you wouldn't be so shallow as to assume Hussein could only affect the U.S. by engaging in direct warfare. If the 1990 invasion of Kuwait had been backed up by nuclear weapons, it would've been far more dangerous to kick Saddam out of Kuwait...perhaps so dangerous that we wouldn't have done it. Then he could've moved on to Saudi Arabia and other major oil-producing nations. After gaining control of 4/5th's of the world's oil supply, he could dictate whatever terms he desired to the rest of the world. The resemblance to Hitler nibbling away at Czechoslovakia peacefully before forcibly conquering Poland is uncanny. And Hussein was known to be an admirer of Hitler. I'm sure the lesson wasn't lost on him, which is why he bullied his neighbors when he could and attacked them when he thought he could get away with it. You seem to keep forgetting that, but I'll keep reminding you of it. But thanks to Bush's actions, we don't have to live through another WWII with another maniacal dictator causing millions of deaths. It may never have come to happen if we hadn't done anything, but now we know for sure it won't.