Mapping a Path For the 3D Web

An anonymous reader writes to mention C|Net coverage of the Metaverse Roadmap Summit, an event designed to look at the future of 3D Web environments. From the article: "While many took issue with the basic premise that an overriding 3D Web will be in place within 10 years, it was clear that most in attendance relished mixing it up as part of an august group that included Microsoft's Robert Scoble, former Sony Online Entertainment chief creative officer Raph Koster, PARC researcher Bob Moore, online game pioneer Randy Farmer, There.com founder and currently IMVU CEO Will Harvey, and CNET Networks editor at large Esther Dyson."

Comments

Ten years huh?

[Kenja]

Ten years ago i was working in the virtual reality field. People swore we would have a 3D web in ten years ten years ago. Anyone remember VRML?

2*2D != 3D!

[gkhan1]

Boy, oh, boy are you wrong. First of all, two 2D images projected onto your eyes to simulate depth, are no more 3D than just one 2D image. I might look more 3D, but since you seem to be a stickler for naming things correctly, it's in no way true 3D. The point is that VRML, just like 3D animated movies and FPSs are modeled inside the computer as three dimensional objects. You translate, shear, scale and rotate in three dimensions. Then it is projected on a 2D surface, that is true, but it still 3D inside the computer. If you demand that the projection also is 3D (and stereoscopic images ARE NOT three dimensional, they are simply two 2D images), the only thing that's going to fulfill that is, well, holograms or a good performance of Hamlet. That's also why it is wrong to call DOOM a 3D shooter, because while it looks like 3D, the engine is pure 2D.

Re:2D + shading != 3D

[spun]

You're not just being pedantic, you are wrong. I lost an eye in a mugging and I can see in 3D just fine, for anything further than about 4 feet. I can't thread a needle to save my life, but I can drive a car and play darts pretty well. The brain has many, many circuits for determining distance besides stereo vision. Color fading, occlusion, parallax, change of focal length, all provide depth perception cues. Seeing something in 3D does not require stereo vision, I can attest to that.