[freearchitecture] Intro / Narya Project

[Viveka]

On 31/01/2004, at 4:12 PM, Terry Hancock wrote:
> So far I'm talking mostly about 2-D CAD, but there will
> eventually be a need for 3-D models, too.  I am currently
> thinking that a good client viewer option will be to take
> advantage of the existing Blender plugin (which became
> free along with the rest of Blender in the historic
> open-source community purchase).

I've been meaning to introduce this list to the Web3D Consortium:
http://www.web3d.org/

This is the group that has created X3D, which is an XML 3D format 
intended for online use.
X3D is back-compatible with VRML97 (the ISO standard for Web 3D, also 
known as MPEG-4 BIFS), but different in that it's extensible (which has 
led to some interesting extensions such as NURBS, GeoX3D, etc), 
profiled, has an XML encoding, etc.
There are a few X3D browsers available. I'll make a list if anyone's 
interested.

Of particular interest to this group is the W3DC's CAD Working Group:
  http://www.web3d.org/fs_cad.htm

At the moment this group is getting a lot of industry involvement from 
players with various proprietary interests. This has stalled progress 
somewhat, since the W3DC's charter is for open standards, and their IP 
policy promotes royalty-free (much like the W3C). All these things are 
volunteer efforts, run by whoever turns up to the meetings, or 
participates in the lists & conference calls. So if anyone on this list 
has an understanding of CAD issues (I don't) and wants to help create 
an open standard for 3D CAD, this would be the place to start. 
Corporate membership of the Consortium is several thousand dollars, but 
professional (individual) membership is $US 99. And non-members can 
have input as well...

Regards,

V.
--
Viveka Weiley, Design Director
Ping Interactive Broadband pty. ltd.
http://www.ping.com.au