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?

Re:Ten years huh?

[DJCF]

One thing that is missing is you have a very limited ability to introduce your own 3D content in to these worlds, being mostly confined to picking wardrobe and hair styles from a predefined set. If I recall the world in Snowcrash was a lot more dynamic, complex and interesting.

Two words: Second Life.

The problem, as I see it, is that these are all proprietary technologies. We are seeing some incredible things, and have seen some incredible things, emerge on the WWW precisely because even though it is horrible, badly-designed, and poorly-conceived, it's open. And that allows people to extend it and interact with it in ways its designers never imagined. Which is why its now such an integral part of life. The problem with WoW, SimsOnline, and to a much lesser extent SecondLife, is that its all proprietary, so although it'll be a good toy, its usefulness may not take off like the WWW. LindenLabs say they are reworking the internals of SL to use open technologies (Jabber for IM, for example) and will release SL's source code in 2010. Then, it should be awesome.

I Find the Concept...

[WeAzElMaN]

Hard to fathom. How, exactly, can a 3D Web be useful in any way? What benefits will it offer that we don't have currently? Sounds like more hype regarding a useless technology (read: VR).

Re:I Find the Concept...

[Saxerman]

Hard to fathom. How, exactly, can a 3D Web be useful in any way? What benefits will it offer that we don't have currently? Sounds like more hype regarding a useless technology (read: VR).

In the same way that 2D icons can be used to represent intangibles that the more mundane computer users might have trouble comprehending, a 3D interface would take this a step further and allow you to not only render concepts and ideas as objects, but allow you to establish a 'distance' between them. As you can move to anywhere within a virtual landscape nigh-instantly this distance doesn't serve as an obstacle to travel so much as a spacial representation of virtual surroundings. Consider a google search in which the most 'relevant' search results are displayed near you, and as you 'move' in a given 'direction' you refine your search.

The more pedantic might decry this as a pointless effort to build abstraction where none is needed, but consider that our younger computer users are probably already moving towards thinking in this direction. (Or, at least, their corporate masters hope so.) For instance, the concept of MySpace might be thought of as a virtual 'room' which a user can decorate and furnish in whatever gaudy fashion they believe might render them hip and trendy to their peers. Currently these 'rooms' don't have any tangible distance between one another, and you might not see value in a the creation of a virtual landscape in which to place these rooms.

However, the important thing to remember, is that this virtual landscape instantly becomes a semi-limited commodity. While it could extend to virtual infinity in all directions, the important thing to the hip and trendy users (travelers, inhabitants) of this user space, is their virtual relation to the rooms of their friends, and whatever cultural icons they seek to identify with. And suddenly the plot of virtual real estate in the shadow of the latest boy band's corporate sponsored virtual shrine shoots up in 'value' as the teeny boppers pledge the credit card numbers of their parents to establish their virtual 'room' there.

Just leave it alone

[AKAImBatman]

The craze of making everything 3D is over. Just leave well enough alone. If a 3D web becomes necessary at some point, then the technology will be developed. Until then, however, we're just taking shots in the dark at what people *might* want.

That being said, if a 3D web is going to come out of anywhere, it will probably stem from the MMOGs. These virtual worlds have become so popular that in some cases they manage to displace the idea of meeting in real life.

Re:Just leave it alone

[Moby Cock]

The craze of making everything 3D is over

Tell that to James Cameron.

Re:Just leave it alone

[morgan_greywolf]

Not just bulletin boards. Think Instant Messenger in 3D.

Like, say ... getting your butt out of the chair and meeting people in real life?

Oh wait, this is Slashdot... ;)

Re:Just leave it alone

[LesPaul75]

How, exactly, is the craze "over?" Pretty much every game released today is 3D. Every console game, every PC game, every handheld game (PSP and DS)... I've even seen a few crappy 3D games available for download on my crusty old phone. And you can be sure that new phones are integrating much more powerful 3D chips. Just about every sci-fi or fantasy movie made today uses 3D rendering extensively. Hospitals have machines devoted to rendering 3D versions of MRI scans, etc... It just matches the way the brain interacts with the real world better than 2D graphics do.

A 3D web will never be "necessary" any more than 3D games are necessary. We could all still be playing games just like Contra and Street Fighter, but with really high-resolution graphics, without 3D. But people just like 3D. It's cool, and it's more like the real world. Ask any guy who just paid $1200 for a pair of NVIDIA graphics cards in SLI if the 3D craze is over.

3D interfaces will work when we have 3D displays

[bunions]

and controllers.

Immersive VR is doomed to failure until the interface to it improves and gets cheaper. HMDs are nice and all, but without a more efficient way to move through the scene, 2D will continue to be a more productive way to interact with data and 3D will continue to be eye candy.

New 3D web slogan suggestions

[DebianDog]

"3D Web - For those that miss the slow old days"
"3D Web - Bringing your 5 year old PC to a stop today"
"3D Web - We make 100% use of your available bandwidth"
"3D Web - With the virtual girls we have, there is not even a reason to bother with a real one"
"3D Web - You thought pop-ups were annoying? Wait till you see 3D billboards go by!"

Bang, Zoom!

[FrankieBoy]

3D Web!?! I'm still waiting for 3D television!

not until we get 3D holographic computer monitors

[PrescriptionWarning]

I believe a huge reason why we don't see 3D web pages today is that nobody wants to see a 3D page on a 2D display. I'm pretty certain that a great majority of people out there want things as simple as possible, thus why 3D games have such a small following when compared to the number of people that browse the web. Its also possible that we just aren't ready to get this kind of information in 3 dimensions, we're still used to paper!

It sure as hell was...

[everphilski]

It was 3D because you could interact in 3D. You could walk into/around/through the scene. In 1997. That's the point.

You will never have perfect (or good, even) pop-out-of-the-screen 3D with a 2D screen. Polarization is faking it. Red-Blue glasses are faking it. (These two are also noted for not working on some people with depth/color perception issues, and causing migraine headaches in a good portion of the population with extended use) HUD's are good but an expensive piece of hardware.

Hey cool!

[iknowcss]

Now web pages can suck in three dimensions!

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:2*2D != 3D!

[DragonWriter]

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.

Two 2-D images captured your eyes and interpreted by your brain is how you see "3-D" in the first place, so two 2-D images projected to your eyes make pretty much as real a 3-D image as you see naturally.

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.

3d web with a 2d monitor?

[CannibalSmith]

The screen is flat! End of discussion.

hm..

[DoctorDyna]

Wait, does this mean Google will have to pay triple for my browsing habits?

It's not just 3D

[i am kman]

Sure, pure 3D is pretty useless for browsing the web today, but it's one component of an evolving and emerging technology that blends the real world and virtual world.

One could readily imagine many uses for immersive 3D environments from remote medical procedures to collaborative architecture to interior design to automobile sales to video games to many other things.

3D digital cameras and such aren't that far away and would be way cool. I'd certainly like to enter a map address into google and get a virtual picture of where I'm going. At least 3D enhanced would be great for many things.

Noone needs 3D email, but it clearly has its place in the broader UI technology space. 10-15 years sounds like a reasonable target.

Re:2D + shading != 3D

[LiquidCoooled]

An additional thing your brain is good at doing is remembering the location of objects whilst you move.
I'm guessing you find it easier to play darts after familiarising yourself by just moving your head around slightly?
it may be subconcious now (and even be part of your normal routine as your walking to the podium) but it should be there.

Its like the flicker images we have seen around (like these)
There is enough information in these images for your brain (and mine) to reconstruct the scene and get depth perception.

Re:Never Fly

[Saxerman]

This will never fly. People don't want to 'walk' around a store to shop, thats Why they go online. My biggest beef with MMOGs is that I have to spend time going to and from missions. The market won't want to commute to and from stores in a virtual strip mall.

You're thinking like a troll rather than a futurist. People do, in fact, 'walk around' when shopping online, and the 'real estate' they tend to walk though is their search engine(s) of choice. Just because you're comfortable walking down isles of text doesn't mean that's what the average shopper (or future virtual land baron) prefers. If froogle (or any other online meta retail site) were to render itself as something of a mall with the online sites which offer the item(s) you are shopping for as shops inside... you have instantly created new real estate to place advertising within. Complete with an ATM machine to move funds to your paypal account and a cinema to watch the latest movie.