O3D vs X3D

[barrel]

Hello all,

Probably not the right group to ask ;-), but I am currently working on
a project for which I need to convert a specific SketchUp model to
x3d. I started reading on x3d and 3dweb in general and am curious
about o3d. It seems to me that x3d and o3d are similar technologies,
so I am trying to figure out why o3d was started. Is it better than
x3d? Different purposes? Substitutes or complementary?

There is a little bit of information at the following site:
http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2009/04/toward-open-web-standard-for-3d.html
but the comments are often questions, instead of answers.

Any comments are welcome,

Kind regards,
Barry

[Peter Strømberg]

Hi Barry,

I wrote my personal thoughts about this very subject when O3D was first released.
http://videometry.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-flips-3d-webs-normals.html

The short version is that O3D is way more extensible than X3D (eXtensible 3D!)

Ofcourse every technology has it's profile, and choosing the right platform depends
on the specific job at hand. In that way you can't really say one technology is
"better" than another without understanding the context, and the technologies.
Which is better a car or a boat? All depends on where you're going!

Briefly I'd say O3D's strong points are that it's cross platform, free and allows the (javascript) developer
to do whatever they want.
If you're a modeller and not interested in building full applications X3D might suit you better.

Cheers

PS


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[Kara Rawson]

additionally X3d might provide a great way to build toolsets for rich 3d applications using any number of frameworks, IMO its like comparing HTML to javascript, both can render content in your browser, but each has a different dev lifecycle with unique pluses and minuses to there syntax. HTML would be consider like X3D to be more uniform and standardized, where as javascript and o3d would be considered more abstracted and dynamic.

X3d provides unified standards amoungst the various stages of the content and dev pipeline, making it a great tool for building simple 3d applications used to manage 3d models and scenese IE building a toolset running on your dektop or intranet. This repository of 3d content could then be accessed by an O3D application that distributes controlled access to remote clients via http.

it would be interesting to see if one could make an adapter which let X3D and O3D communicate together. This might build a foundation for some interesting mashup :)

kara

[yottzumm]

X3D provides JavaScript/Java/etc. for behavior which cannot be
programmed with XML/VRML/Scenegraph/Interpolators/Routes between
nodes. It would be interesting to compile X3D to O3D, similar to how
GWT-O3D and Collada is done. I am not sure why Google chose Collada
over X3D. If you haven't seen routes before, they make X3D like a
data flow language (JavaFX has a similar feature--'bind' I believe).
Which I don't believe is standard JavaScript. Does O3D have a route
feature?