3D Graphics For Firefox, Webkit

angry tapir writes "A group of researchers plans to release a version of the Firefox browser that includes the built-in ability to view 3D graphics. They've integrated real-time ray tracing technology, called RT Fact, into Firefox and Webkit. Images are described using XML3D, and the browser can natively render the 3D scene." The browser will be released within a few weeks, the researchers say, and they are checking with the Mozilla Foundation about whether they can call it Firefox.

Comments

No love for VRML

[BadAnalogyGuy]

We've had 3D graphics for YEARS in browsers. It is called VRML and it is a standard that has been with us since the early days of graphical browsers.

But the real question is who in their right mind will develop anything as ephemeral as a web page with this complicated technology? The time investment involved to come out with even the simplest of models is enormous. Maybe not John Pinette enormous, something smaller like Louie Anderson enormous.

Re:No love for VRML

[bbbaldie]

I have "fond" memories of vrml sites, a 14,400 modem, and a 486 slc machine. One thing about it, though, it was peppier than 1995 Java!

Re:No love for VRML

[vadim_t]

Just like Second Life, the 3D web is not something people actually want

The 50K people logged in right now would seem to disagree. Right now it's a fairly low activity time, should go up later. And from the inside it seems to be still getting larger.

They think it sounds great. Looking at pretty things instead of reading boring stuff is in their eyes the ultimate evolution of computing. That's why you keep reading this sort of stuff all the time. But it will never stick, because in reality, it's just not very useful.

I see it in a different way. Not everything has to be a revolution. Back when there was a lot of news about SL there was a lot of hype for sure, but there must be some use to it, since it didn't die when it stopped getting talked about so much. Some people see no point in SL, that's perfectly fine. I see no point WoW either, but that doesn't make it a failure just because it fails to appeal to every person on the planet.

I think this will be in the same way. Uses will be found for it. It won't be a revolution that will change every website everywhere. Not everybody has an espresso machine, and not everybody is going to have 3D on their website, but that doesn't mean those aren't useful things.

Re:Clarification

[BhaKi]

Does this mean this technology will be used strictly for 3D images/scenes, or when they say 3D are they referring to gaming?

Obviously and according to TFA, they're referring to 3D images/scenes. Gaming would require, amongst other things, browser-support for raw input devices, (at-least partial) server-side magic for processing interactive events. While these are definitely possible, they're not what this is about.

Re:Calling it Firefox

[phooka.de]

If successful, it wouldn't surprise me to see the Mozilla folks include this feature in a future release of Firefox.

Heaven forbid, please no!

We don't need a rendering engine for every arcane formalt ever developed incorparated into a browser that's deployed on millions of desktops. Just remember, each supported protocol adds new complexety, new errors and with this new secutiry-issues that'll lead to exploits, bad press, compromised machines and painful bugfixing.

Stuff like this should never be part of the browser, it should be an addon.

Re:Doesn't matter. 3D in the browser is stupid.

[Junta]

WebGL/RT/HTML5 are not fundamentally stupid. VRML hype mistakenly centered around a 3D navigation model for most of the web replacing 2D textual interaction with some image content, which was stupid.

However, richer multimedia content is a fact of life now with increased bandwidth. If it were not, then flash wouldn't persist (overuse of flash was a fad that has abated a bit in favor of javascript/css mechanisms, but flash persists for video and games without viable alternatives). Various video streaming sites that are relegated to flash today for games and videos would be freed from Adobe's whims as the embedded video, canvas, and 3d capabilities are expressed in industry standard terms.

Re:Doesn't matter. 3D in the browser is stupid.

[JBMcB]

We realized that 3D graphics in the browser were stupid and useless back in 1995, when the VRML hype was much like the HTML5 hype is today.

There are a few differences.

VRML was never really an industry standard, it evolved from an SGI project and was adopted by a few other companies. There were competing technologies that seemed better, but were mostly closed. In any case, they required browser plugins that were large, clunky, and crashy.

At the height of VRML's popularity, there really weren't any standards for desktop 3D acceleration. Getting decent performance from a VRML browser required a pretty fast machine, and the graphics were very crude even then.

Now we have an industry standard backed by the group in charge of HTML, ridiculously fast 3d hardware on even low end desktops, and, with the modded FireFox and Webkit backends, integration with the codebase.

This might end up working.

Re:Doesn't matter. 3D in the browser is stupid.

[BRock97]

We realized that 3D graphics in the browser were stupid and useless back in 1995...

...and slow! I was there when VRML was landing (just finished high school) and all I saw it used for were virtual rooms were avatars would talk in a 3D IRC like environment. Only big problem back then was we didn't have 3D acceleration and the interface was clunky and painfully slideshow like in speed.

As for uses, I could think of a few and have already started coding them. Instead of loading a PNG or GIF, it is pretty nice to be able to download a float array, be able to display it, and allow a user to interrogate it. Giving a user that kind of capability in the browser while not requiring them to download an application or a browser plugin is pretty darn nice. And while not mainstream, scientific fields could greatly benefit from something like that.