Creating interactive 3D WebApps using X3DOM
Holger Graf and Yvonne Jung
In recent years a new trend for interactive 3D graphics from large scale macro VR worlds to micro scale 3D interactive visual environments, that can be deployed on any platform and device became visible. One of the pushing factors is the availability of new smartphones, that provide miniaturised platforms and dedicated enabling technologies for the rendering of and interaction with 3D content. WebGl as a subset of OpenGL drove significantly the developments of 3D applications for the web and enabled traditional web browsers to render interactive 3D content implementing an extension to its DOM. Using JS and CSS, thus, it is then possible to customise rendering and interaction through simple HTML5 technologies. As it is deployable also in browser instances for smartphones, 3D interactive visual environments become available on mobile devices. One of the challenges is to embed webGL calls into a higher level of abstraction that at the same time allows for a declarative description of the scene to be rendered. X3DOM is one environment that at the same time enables the development as well as the deployment of interactive 3D declarative content for the web. This tutorial is intended to be a quick start for people who have no experience with 3D graphics so far but want to try out X3DOM. Authoring X3DOM content is very similar to authoring HTML. The tutorial introduces declarative 3D in HTML5, how to integrate 3D elements into the DOM, adding dynamics using adequate scripting through JavaScript and styling via CSS. It is intended for non-experts or newbies to 3D graphics and web design professionals alike.
