3D Web
Synopsis
Browsing the world wide web as a three dimensional virtual world.
Rationale
Virtual online worlds like Second Life are like the AOL of the 3D web, they provide a walled garden in the virtual 3D world using proprietary software. Although the Second Life Client is now Open Source, the server software remains closed and only Linden Labs are able to run Second Life servers. Like AOL eventually had to open up user's access to the rest of the Internet, these innovative but proprietary solutions will eventually give way to a ubiquitous online space which is a direct extension of the web and uses web standards. Anyone will be able to host a 3D web server.
Features
3D Web Server
- An existing HTTP server which serves 3D web pages to client requests with the relevent HTTP Accept header
- Server side scripting
- XML transformation if required
- 3D web pages or "spaces" written in X3D and ECMAScript (with hyperlinks between spaces).
- Web interface to chat server
Chat Server
- Chat server, possibly using the XMMP protocol
Avatar Server
A special type of 3D web server which holds a person's 3D avatar. This could optionally include a distribute authentication mechanism like OpenID which identifies a user securely to others in a 3D space. When a user visits a 3D space, their avatar is served to that 3D world so that they appear to other users.
3D Web Browser
(Could be part of a Multimodal Web User Agent).
- Rendering X3D
- Executing ECMAScript
- Sending HTTP Requests with the relevent Accept headers to ask for a 3D representation of a resource
Implementation
Web3D Consortium
Metaverse Roadmap
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