Justin, Fiona,
To add to your debate, I really like Java3D and I think it is the most productive
3D programming environment that I have come across. But ... I do think it has
more fundamental problems than you suggest.
There does not seem to be a way to distribute applications to end users unless
they are prepared to spend a lot of time downloading and installing Java2 then
Java3D then the application.
Better support from browsers might help (is IE likely to support Java3D at some
date?). But what about big applications that need to read and write local files?
I don't think most users would be prepared to do the big downloads and installations
required just to try out a program.
Even a native exe compiler would not help (even if you could find one to support
Java3D). Once you compile all the Java libraries to native you are going to
end up with a 30M download.
Also, 3D programs are quite heavy users of CPU power, and the JVM interpretation
must hit performance, and with new microprocessors bringing out new instructions
aimed at 3D, this gap is likely to increase. There is also a problem of the
program stopping at intervals due to garbage collection.
In short, I think Java3D makes it much easier to develop 3D applications, but
much harder to use them. So, even if it takes 10 times longer to develop a program
using C++ and OpenGL, if you want people to use it you may have to.
I hope I've missed something, please prove me wrong!!!
Martin Baker
http://www.martinb.com
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