Dear group, I have been reading the Geometry and Physics VAG<https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Geometry_and_Physics_VAG>page and Burhop Piccard's Geometry Based Architecture View<https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Geometry_Based_Architecture_View>page on the Second Life Wiki and have some opinions I would like to share. Forgive me if these sources of information are outdated or outside the scope of the AWG.
I agree that it is sensible to support multiple interchange formats and persistent storage formats for geometry. This will allow a wide range of content deployment paths from popular modelling tools and a will allow the interchange of different formats of geometric data between virtual world servers via web services. However, the latter linked page describes a possible viewer architecture which includes a range of plugins to render different geometry formats. In my opinion this approach would make the vision of seamlessly moving between virtual worlds very unlikely. I propose a single standard format for sending geometry data to viewers, rather than supporting multiple formats. Perhaps even more contraversially, I would urge the Architecture Working Group to examine the binary and XML encodings of X3D <http://web3d.org> in this context. X3D is the ISO standard for delivering interactive 3D content over the the web (HTTP) and due to its maturity and open nature seems on the surface to be a good fit for this use case. I suspect that there may be a certain level of stigma attached to the X3D specification and its origins in VRML (even the term Web3D), but I welcome informed discussion around the advantages and disadvantages of using X3D in this specific context. Perhaps some value can be derived from the years of work put into the X3D specification. I admit to not being hugely familiar with the architecture of Second Life and OpenSim, but I can not envision how a collection of 3D worlds can be truly inter-operable if users have to download a different viewer plugin to visit each world. To me this would be like browsing the web where each web page uses a different alternative to HTML. Regards Ben (Second Life: tola Cult) -- Ben Francis http://tola.me.uk
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