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Three 3D Web Browsers Reviewed
mikemuch writes "Use that graphics card for something besides games. ExtremeTech has a group review of three browsers that use some aspect of 3D to display the Web. While none of them are going to put Firefox or IE out of business any time soon, they're fun to play with and give a new slant to the Web." From the article: "Whatever happened to the virtual reality, 3D world of the Web? Back in the late '90s, all the hype was about VRML -- Virtual Reality Markup Language -- which would turn the web into an immersive environment that you'd maneuver around to get to the information you wanted. We're here to tell you that the reports of the 3D Web's death are greatly exaggerated."
But still completely useless and unneeded
Hack the Gibson!!
...that 3D graphics have been used to display web data. Back in the early 90s, CompuServe had a virtual mall which was a bit like that. It was painfully slow; a real gimmick. I can't see any benefit beyond the gimmick for then, and now.
My first thought was VRML and what a clunky thing that was before it all but vanished. I've still got books and CD's for doing stuff in it, in a box somewhere, probably in the car-port.
Not really what I had in mind when I thought about what would make for decent 3D browsing. This looks like something you could knock off in a plug-in, like Flash. Probably has some decent uses, like creating a game on your own website or a Realtor giving you a VR tour of a house (which i think someone nearby already has.) Handy for exploring a Mall, to see where a shop is rather than looking at those little hand-bills which are sometimes so artsy-fartsy you just try to go in the general direction and hope you find it. Hope people keep these sites updated. More content==more overhead for maintenance.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Second Life is a sort of 3D web browser. To me, Second Life is everything I envisioned and more when I first heard about VRML.
The best 3d web thing I've ever seen is Apple's dashboard widgets in OSX. Each widget can have a (nicely standardized) button which activates the preferences for the widget. The prefrences are on the back of the widget. Literally when you click the prefs button the widget flips over in 3d animation and you interact with the preference panel.
I find this incredible because a) it's an amazing practical use of 3d and b) it's not at all flashy or trying to create a 'new 3d browsing paradigm' or some such silliness. Instead, Apple has used the graphics tools available to them and once again, made a fantastic advance in user interfaces.
Before you call me an Apple fanboy, you should know that I don't even own a Mac, I just think they're neat is all.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
And many things are not all they are 'hyped' up to me.
:P
Like grammar, for example.
It is understandable that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. However, when every problem is a nail, why the hell would you look for a screwdriver?
It's time that we draw a line in the sand: no further development on the 3D browser until a commercially viable flying car hits the market.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
3D is useful (even with 2D screens) for all kinds of data, and conventional interfaces are adequate, if not ideal, for working with it (otherwise, we wouldn't have 3D games). But 3D's internet utility, I think, is going to materialize in forms that are very much not like what we think of as "web browsers", though there may be some overlap (of course, "Web" applications are becoming increasingly ill-suited to the traditional web browser model as well, leading browsers to increasingly become fairly generic application platforms) -- I think that things like OpenCroquet are more like where internet 3D will bloom than 3D adaptations or plugins for traditional web-browsers.
Texture-mapping the 2D web onto the walls doesn't accomplish much.
That's the problem with ALL of the 3D web-browsing/user-interface implementations right now. You use markup and controls that are designed to render onto a flat 2D raster surface. It seems logical to bundle an existing renderer (an IE/gecko control, or a UI toolkit window rendering) and point it at a texture, and then schlep that into a 3D framework... but that's just so completely wrong.
At least for web browsing... if you want to make it 3D then you first need to WRITE a 3d renderer for XHTML. You need to figure out some way of interpreting the tags and markup and using 3d (or 3d accelerated algorithms) to do something intelligent with all that CSS and hints.
You are going to need to at least have an antialiased glyph renderer for text. Either using real polygons or dynamically created texture maps (maybe a single mip-mapped texture for each character).
Because on the web the most important thing to be able to have is LEGIBLY RENDERED TEXT.
Maybe for the sake of keeping polycounts low you reserve the shape-defined text for h1/h2 tags and render the rest as rasters. But do something useful with them.
Don't start putting textures containing text at oblique angles unless you've got it at least 2x oversampled. Instead, render it to a surface in a bounding box and "float" it where you want but keep it's normal pointed straight at the view frustrum. Or use a particle or sprite primitive.
Come on people!
Have a look at some demoscene demostrations and how they integrate text and 3d. I guarantee you can always read the text clearly (as it is often used to convey jokes or greetz). And that stuff is just for fun.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Back in 1996, Packard Bell computers came with this thing installed, called navigator. It was a picture of an office, with a desk and shelves and books and things. Clicking on the items would take you to different applications, file system browsers, etc.
It was stupid then, and it's stupid now.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk