Archive notice: This article was originally published on February 10, 2010. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Researchers from Saarbrücken are showing how this will soon be possible in a simple way. They can now embed interactive 3D scenes directly into any website. They will present the new technology for the first time at the international CeBIT 2010 computer trade fair, which takes place in Hanover from March 2 to 6 (hall 9, stand B 43).
The 3D technology for the internet was developed by a research team led by Professor Philipp Slusallek at the newly founded Intel Visual Computing Institute at Saarland University and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). For this purpose, the computer scientists took a closer look at ordinary web browsers such as Firefox. Until now, the HTML programming language used there could display only text, images and videos. An extension developed by the Saarbrücken computer scientists in recent months now also allows complex three-dimensional graphics to be processed. In future, this new web technology, called “XML3D”, can be used by all internet users with the help of a small additional programme. At CeBIT, the Saarbrücken researchers will present the first browser versions with this 3D extension.
The applications for the new technology are diverse. In future, for example, a customer could virtually try on an evening dress before buying it from an online shop. She would then be able to move spatially through a depicted opera house or nightclub on the screen. A car buyer could sit in the new car for a virtual test drive after personally configuring its equipment. Entirely new possibilities also open up for engineers when they design products at different locations and can work together on their 3D models via the internet. “The new 3D internet opens up completely new markets in which there could soon be a gold-rush atmosphere similar to that at the launch of the first web offerings,” Professor Slusallek believes.
The new technology from Saarbrücken has the advantage of being easy for web developers and designers to learn because it builds on familiar browser web technology. Alongside traditional rasterisation for displaying the scene, it also supports so-called real-time ray tracing. This interactive visualisation technique was brought to market maturity by Philipp Slusallek and his team in recent years and is now being further developed and offered by major chip manufacturers Intel and Nvidia for their respective graphics hardware. Unlike conventional methods, it can depict shadows and reflections in a physically correct way. This makes virtual scenes, for example in feature films or computer games, look considerably more realistic. “Today, these scenes are created with elaborate tricks. This will no longer work on the 3D internet when arbitrary users all over the world start putting their own 3D content online. They will then expect it to look realistic immediately and simply work without complicated tricks,” says computer-graphics expert Slusallek. He therefore sees the future of ray-tracing technology particularly in the 3D internet.
Technical background of XML3D
XML3D is a scene-description language developed for programmable graphics processors. Unlike earlier formats such as VRML and X3D, which never became established, XML3D simply extends normal HTML with 3D capabilities. Geometry data, for example, is stored in such a way that it can be passed directly to the graphics hardware without having to retain copies in CPU memory. The material model newly developed for XML3D with the portable shader description “AnySL” also relies entirely on programmable graphics hardware. In addition to the traditional rasterisation process, shaders described in AnySL also permit the use of real-time ray tracing for the first time, allowing the 3D scenes to be displayed even more realistically.
The new process allows three-dimensional graphics to be embedded directly into any website, and much more interactively than before. Web links in the text can change the 3D scene, show it from a different view or start an animation. Existing websites can also be supplemented quickly and easily with interactive 3D graphics. All 3D objects, for example, are also part of the DOM (Document Object Model) and can therefore be changed quickly by any developer. It is just as easy to load 3D scene components via AJAX as needed or adapt their design using CSS. Alongside use in the browser, XML3D technology is also intended to become available in future as a library and through a Software Development Kit (SDK) on all common operating systems for integration into commercial and open-source applications. In this way, Professor Slusallek’s research group aims to help software developers integrate interactive 3D graphics into their applications easily and quickly.
At stand B 43 in hall 9 at CeBIT 2010, DFKI and the Intel Visual Computing Institute at Saarland University will present the new XML3D technology to a broad public for the first time. Applications from architecture, urban planning, history and product marketing will also be shown. On March 2 at 1:25 p.m., Prof. Slusallek will give a talk in the “future talk” (hall 9, stand A 30) on “Interactive 3D graphics in Firefox with XML3D”.