Hi Justin,
Thanks much for your initiative. I do hope that Java 3D type scenegraph architecture would continue to exist in some form or the other.
Firstly, if you or some consortium wants to maintain and enhance the API, then I would be happy to send in a yearly subscription to cover the costs.
Here is my wish list (FWIW or Not):
1. A platform agnostic SceneGraph (SG) API with preferably identical syntax and semantics just as JAVA 3D to start with to ease migration. I'm not sure how useful maintaining the entire Java 3D codebase would be (ref. Paul Pantera's note sometime earlier). So, the best bet would be to grab the useful goodies from Java 3D. I would also prefer the SG API to be domain agnostic so that exploiting special features/algorithms w.r.t to one domain wouldn't end up bloating the codebase or degrade the efficiency of some other. It would be nice if we could bring in the special features as non-intrusive "plugins". In any case, a minimal SG implementation that would serve as a reference implementation would be ideal - this is a wish list, right ... ? As I had mentioned a while back, Sun should have released such an implementation at about the same time they released jogl. This would have saved Sun and everybody a lot of pain and prevented Java 3D name from getting tainted.
2. A low-level binding to OpenGL, and perhaps to that alone. This I would think cannot be cannibalized straight off from Java 3D because of its overall complexity. The option then would be to use jogl as the underlying binding.
3. Retain the multithreaded/behavior and DirectX options of Java 3D ? - I'm not sure whether I need something as such!! But then others may have their own strong preferences.
4. Excellent documentation, tutorials etc. not just for how to use the API, but for using it most optimally. Lack of such was one of the primary reasons why I believe that people were apprehensive to use the new SG based Java 3D.
I think my wishlist nearly parallels what Xith3D and others are probably upto. Maybe it would be a worthwhile idea to pool all efforts or wait for the Darwinian theory to take over.
As for the blurb about my own application, here goes my <shameless plug>...:
I've been using Java 3D for more than 2 years now. My interests are primarily in SciViz but I follow game technologies with considerable interest. The SciViz application that I have developed is called SciDelik. It is 100% Java, 100% Java 3D, 100% independently developed by me, and 100% self-funded. It is a fairly large app., threatening to breach 100 K LOC, with 10-15% of it being associated with the Java 3D renderer inspite of all the data abstraction.
My objective in developing SciDelik is to provide a free / extra-ordinarily cheap Java based cross-platform visualization tool to the community. The app. itself is not open source at the present time.
SciDelik is a turnkey visualization and animation system based on the popular data-flow paradigm but with a memory efficient twist - it uses mostly data-reference as opposed to data-copy logic. SciDelik is primarily oriented toward post-processing and animating computational field solutions such as those from CFD and heat transfer, computational solid and electromagnetics etc. It uses very efficient data structures such as BV hierarchies and Kd-trees for generating cutting planes, isosurfaces, and volume rendering. SciDelik can generate illuminated and haloed streamlines, contour lines and bands, volume slices, stream ribbons and tubes etc. SciDelik can process and display simultaneously multiple datasets (FAST, PLOT3D, etc.), and supports arbitrary combination of tria, quad, tet, pyramid, prism, and hexa cell topologies within the same dataset.
Attached is a snapshot...more from my website later...
Regards to everybody
N. Vaidya, PhD
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