instantreality 1.0

Currently Internet Explorer does not sport a native WebGL implementation. This means X3DOM has to fallback to the Flash Player in order to render 3D content. However, there is a way around this: Chrome Frame. The plugin developed by Google replaces the default rendering engine of Internet Explorer with Google Chrome. What you get is the User Interface of Internet Explorer and the rendering capabilities of  Google Chrome – including a native WebGL implementation.

As an IE user, we recommend you install the Chrome Frame plugin to experience the full power of X3DOM. As a developer, you can target the Chrome Frame rendering engine, by placing the following meta tag in your HTML head section:

    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1" />

Alternatively, if you do not want to edit all your HTML files for this, you can set a HTTP header on your server to trigger Chrome Frame. More info can be found here:

• Chrome Frame developer guide
• X3DOM documentation

Our X3DOM examples already use that technique to enable Chrome Frame if you have it installed.

Here’s a introduction of Chrome Frame by Google:

We are happy to announce two related scientific conferences, which are coming up and where members of the X3DOM team are directly involved as part of the organizing team: the Dec3D 2012 Workshop  in conjunction with WWW2012 in April located in Lion, France, and the 17th International Web3D 2012 conference that is co-located with ACM Siggraph 2012 and held in Los Angeles, USA. Both conferences include a ‘call for papers’ for related scientific material:

• CfP: Dec3D 2012 Workshop. Paper Deadline: 22/02/2012
• CfP: Web3D 2012 Conference. Paper Deadline: 03/04/2012

Please consider contributing a paper, if you use or extend X3DOM in some kind of scientific project or work on related topics (e.g., declarative 3D approaches or WebGL-based rendering).

The current version of X3DOM extend the X3D Inline functionality with the possibility of reflection. If you include an external scene with the use of inline  into another scene, you can set the attribute ”nameSpaceName”. This attribute causes the attached scene to be represented in the DOM. This feature makes it possible to access the elements inside the inlined scene with JavaScript.

This is an extension of the official specification, which does not yet include reflection.

If you inline a scene <inline nameSpaceName=’foo’ url=’someScene.x3d’ /> with a named element <Box id=’bar’ /> you can address this element with getElementById(‘foo__bar’).

The x3d specification describes eight 2D Nodes:

• Arc2D
• ArcClose2D (“PIE”/”CHORD”)
• Circle2D
• Disk2D
• Polyline2D
• Polypoint2D
• Rectangle2D
• TriangleSet2D.

Recently you can use it to build you scene in X3DOM.

This component and those nodes are not part of the X3DOM core but provides by a extra component plugin.

You can use it with include the Geometry2D.js component

The Attributes of all these components you could change with javascript. For example, you could change the length of the radius of Arc2D as follows:

In the new version of x3dom it is possible to use IndexedFaceSet nodes with concave polygons.

To use this features you only need to add an attribut like convex=’false’ to the IndexedFaceSet  element.

This features is realized on the basis of the Ear Clipping  algorithm. This algorithm has two restrictions:

• you should not use polygons with hole
• and you should not use polygons with overlap.

Example:

With the current developer build of X3DOM we provide a component system which allows you to load a core X3DOM library and then subsequently add extensions from separate files. You can also create your own extensions to X3DOM.

Resources:

• Documentation
• Example

TU Darmstadt offers two scholarships in Visual Computing technologies. One position has a strong focus on declarative 3D in the web (esp. X3DOM and WebGL development) :

• Declarative 3D in the Web – Efficient and flexible declaration and visualization of interactive 3D web content

The other one is more focused on the development of a software platform for Augmented and Mixed Reality applications:

• Visual Computing Platforms – A “unified reality” platform for a direct coupling of image analysis and synthesis metaphors

More information can be found here: http://www.gris.tu-darmstadt.de/home/jobs/

These PhD positions at the TU Darmstadt will give the possibility to perform the PhD studies in close cooperation with Fraunhofer IGD, an internationally renowned research institute. The scholarships are initially limited to two years and can be complemented with an additional contract at Fraunhofer IGD in Darmstadt.

The Technical University of Darmstadt is an equal opportunity employer. Women are especially encouraged to apply. Handicapped applicants with comparable qualification will be given preferential treatment.