Has anyone heard about firefox trying to present a 3D web platform in 2010? I had heard this from some guys at work and thought it was really cool with some of the ideas we had that could be done with "3D websites" but is it realistic?

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I don't think 3D websites are technically possible.
Now itself we have tons of sites that support graphics.

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You are probably refering to WebGL, a technology that embeds 3d graphics capabilities into web browsers. This technology is in alpha/nightly build versions of Mozilla Firefox and WebKit. The spec is expected to be formalized in 2010, but implementation is expected to happen over the next few months.

Interesting note: about five years ago, every major browser on the market natively supported 3D web content, through built-in support of VRML, or Virtual Reality Modeling Language. I actually coded a web site using VRML, once. There are only a handful of developers worldwide that have done so. I say this to point out just how unused the technology was. It has since been removed from most of the browsers.

There were only a few companies that really used 3D technology in their web sites. One was CyberTown, a 3D chat site that predated Second Life by about a decade and which ran natively in the browser. The remaining sites were mostly engineering and consumer electronics companies that posted 3D user-manipulatable models on their sites.

Today, there are two ways 3D is used in browsers. The first is to actually display web sites and tabs. This can be seen in systems like spacetime.com and browse3d.com. The other is to display 3d content that is embedded in sites. This can be seen in 3b.net and is the goal of WebGL and other similar standards that are being developed now. While I enjoy following the developments in 3d on the web, I am somewhat cynical about their chances of success.

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Is it natural to have this in a traditional web browser?

I think it is not difficult to implement such fetures in your program if you know

1. the C++ Builder 2007 / 2009 / 2010 and the
2. Canvas (TCanvas) and image (TImage) component
3. The web components (like TWebBrowser, TCppWebBrowser etc. ...)

Two important questions are:

1. How will it affect the browser's security model?
2. The browsers efficiency?

Here WebGL in Firefox nightly builds, demoed with 3D Spore model - Ars Technica is an example.

Related: What about "browsing" web application sites?

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The future is so going to bring things that we've yet to even dream about. This is an interesting subject and I'm sure someone will indeed come up with a way to trump this idea as well.

LOL

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Good question. I believe the security would be similar to running AJAX applications. WebGL basically provides a bridge between Javascript and OpenGL, the standard graphics library built into most desktop computers.
From my understanding, WebGL should greatly improve the efficiency of the browser; not only could this technology improve rendering of 3d images, it might also help to improve performance when rendering video.

The main purpose of WebGL is to give the browser a way to tap into OpenGL, allowing the browser to send graphics-related tasks to the computer's more powerful and specialized video processor to perform rendering instead of having the main processor do it. This would leave the main processor more cycles to work on rendering the non-media page contents, while the video card should be much more efficient in rendering the graphics components.

I think this will be very interesting to see if this catches on. The technology is being developed for several platforms (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera) already, and I hear rumors that Microsoft is also researching the spec. If a practical use is found for the 3D content I would not be surprised if it didn't rapidly become implemented across all of the major browsers.

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OpenGL is easily combined with C++Builder Professional. (See chapter 4.)

Interesting.

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True - that is the point of OpenGL, it provides an easy, and open source, library that C++ can easily hook into to develop graphics rich applications. Plugins such as Flash, in theory, can do this already.

The issue here is to allow scripts to be delivered to the user that can interact directly with OpenGL without needing any plugin. So, instead of the user downloading a compiled application, WebGL will take Javascript and pass it to OpenGL. - although it is a transition layer between Javascript and OpenGL, as a developer of the 3d content, you would see the relationship as Javascript uses WebGL to render graphics like C++ uses OpenGL to render graphics. WebGL is simply a wrapper for OpenGL for Javascript.

Going in favor of adoption of this is the fact that pretty much anyone that might come up with a competing standard is helping develop this standard except Microsoft (The major browser companies, Opera, Mozilla and Google; and the major video processor companies, ATI and NVIDIA.)

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1. Speed should be critical for a browser.
2. Personally, I would maximize the use of a compiled module and minimize the use of any scripting layer.

Did you scan / read the updated version of my document?

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Is this available now?Where can I find the link to download it?

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If it is a question to the OP:

I think the answer is no.

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I think there is a certain advantage to using scripting in this case, actually. First and foremost, as you mention, speed is important. Compiled code needs to be downloaded, loaded to an executable area, and then run - or an interpreter needs to be loaded to run the code. This adds considerable overhead. Consider the difference between moving text with Javascript, and using a Flash movie. Which is displayed first in today's browsers?

On top of that, you have cross platform issues. Compiled code such as C++ native needs to be compiled for every platform, whereas a script would be rendered internally to the browser. Also, you have the security benefit of leaving the execution of the script in the sandbox - no external compiled code to call (as has been targeted in the recent attacks that use Flash) and no compiled code that needs to be executed locally.

If you are looking to develop a WebGL application, you can download a nightly build of Firefox, and enable WebGL.

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I am curious how many memory will use this WebGL. Honestly lately I have encoured some problems with firefox, using too many memory.

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@wige

Rereading your earlier posts, now, I am a little confused.

1. Are we talking about a webbrowser or
2. a web application?

Even if it is 2, I think C++Builder can be used alone or in combination with libraries like Atozed Software - IntraWeb - VCL for the Web that is included in C++Builder 2010.

Some solutions here: Atozed Software - Case Studies

You find more information in the link I gave you: http://www.oopschool.com/books/CPB2010.pdf chapter 5.2.

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I don't believe that the goal of WebGL is to create full web applications. This project is aimed more toward what VRML provided, a means for a web site to easily embed 3d graphics that can be dynamically rendered and modified. These won't be full apps - I agree that that would probably be better suited to an executable. Where I see WebGL being used most is for adding dynamic graphics without the need for executables - think of it as <canvas> on steroids, with the ability to deal directly with the graphics hardware.

Just to give an example - suppose you are creating the web site for a department store. Rather than have a normal home page that is a list of links to your various departments, you want to create a very basic 3d rendering of your store, where the user can click on a department, possibly with the added capability that after clicking certain departments the view changes as the user's view is whisked to that area of the store. Currently, you would need to create this application in Flash, using closed source code that the client has to download, or you have to create your own plugin (one for every browser). WebGL will allow you to do the same thing without the extra overhead of calling up a plugin, while allowing the graphics and logic to be coded in a text file.

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Related development :

AMD Announces Open Physics Initiative Designed to Bring New Levels of Realism to Gaming, Simulations, Popular Applications

Physics Simulation Forum

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Interesting.

games physics Books, Book Price Comparison at 130 bookstores

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