3D Web Sites and Applications

Question

I have for the last several years been struggling to understand why the Internet has so few actually useful 3D web applications. It's 2009 and still everything looks like pages from a Sears catalog. You can turn on your TV and find flying logos every night. After that you can get nostalgic and flip on ol' N-64 and play some Zelda or Mario Kart. On the PC, Sims 2 is approaching 6 years old already.. And then there's WoW. Current generation of users - the Facebook crowd, let's say - has ~no~ problem dealing with multi-dimensional environments..

And yet, nothing really immersive seems to happen on the web. I've been hearing about VRML and X3D for at least 10 years and ... pffft .. - nothing earth shaking going on there. Java 3D ? .. cool ! .. but ...... Still .... waiting and waiting.

Do you think it will take a killer-web app before people become accustomed-to or will seek to use what could more more engaging web experiences?

I am not talking about Second Life and other dedicated downloaded applications. I probably am more focused on apps like Lively or SceneCaster or Hangout or a half dozen others that are delivered 'painlessly' directly into web pages.

My own particular interest is in the domain of virtual stores and immersive shopping. Its been a challenge trying to understand why an average user would not want to browse and wander a changing mall-space - like in the real world -- entertained by unexpected discovery.

Is the 3D web always going to be 5 years in the future ?

Answer 1

Some of the major problems with technologies that would create web based 3d Uis:

• Breaking browser navigation
• Not search engine friendly
• Not easily accessible by disabled people

I don't think you will see a push from amazon or ebay to roll out a 3d interface until google has a way of indexing them.

Answer 2

3D shops seem to bring the disadvantages of real world malls to the Internet. Do people really want to "walk" through Amazon to find what they're looking for?

It's much faster to scroll through a list of search results on a page than to navigate through a three dimensional space to look at the same results.

The link given in a previous comment (http://www.windowshop.com/) illustrates that quite well (even though it's basically a 2D interface with zooming).

3D has its place when it comes to looking at individual items. Several sites already feature "surround views" of their goods. This seems to add value for the customers, which is why it is being done.

I'm not so sure whether 3D is such a good idea for navigation, though.

Answer 3

Because using 3d isn't an efficient means of conveying lists of information and tabular data. This includes e-commerce websites selling products.

I don't want to have to rotate a 3d camera angle, move forward and finally turn left to arrive at the section of Amazon.com selling garden hoses. I just want to type in "Garden Hoses" and look at my easy to digest list of products in my search results.

Answer 4

You'll have to wait until 3D support is built into all browsers (well the major ones anyway) in the same way that 3D image support is before it really takes off. This will require one or two formats to "win" in the same way that gif and jpg won the image race. We might get there with Silverlight and Adobe Air.

"Regular" people don't want to install plugins and extensions - they may not even know how to. We geeks and nerds will always install the latest gizmo, but we're a small section of the general populace.

EDIT: I've just realised that there is already a plugin out there that most people will have installed - it's called Flash. The real blockage is that there's no perceived need.

EDIT: Mozilla and OpenGL get together - this might be what 3D needs to take off, but we'll have to wait and see.

Answer 5

There is an ongoing discussion between the W3C and the Web3D consortium about integrating X3D to HTML5 (much like SVG is done for HTML4).

A preliminary project: http://www.x3dom.org/. The project is really active since the last year.

Read the paper here, it is quite intersting. Given that the W3C seems to follow closely that project, and that several render backends are planned to be used (actually WebGL, but later Google O3D for example) maybe the old dream of VRML/X3D guys could become reality in a not so distant future.

However, since it depends on HTML5 adoption, I think 5 years to be a minimum...