Google 3D Web
Google, the all conquering online search giant, has revealed that it now plans to take online 3D technology VERY seriously indeed. According to industry sources its plans to back a simple 3d plug in have been scrapped to be replaced by a much wider ranging 3d web graphics technology called WebGL.
It means that while it may delay Google’s moves into the 3D market it does mean that the product they drag from the drawing board into our homes and offices is sure to be much more wide ranging.
Engineering Director Matt Papakipos and programmer Vangelis Kokkevis said of the plans:
‘We did not take this decision lightly. In initial discussions we had about WebGL, we were concerned that JavaScript would be too slow to drive a low-level API like OpenGL and we were convinced that a higher level approach like the O3D scene graph would yield better results. We were also cognizant of the lack of installed OpenGL drivers on many Windows machines, and that this could hamper WebGL’s adoption.’
‘Since then, JavaScript has become a lot faster. We’ve been very impressed by the demos that developers have created with WebGL, and with the ANGLE project, we believe that Chromium will be able to run WebGL content on Windows computers without having to rely on installed OpenGL drivers.’
One of the big changes with the O3D rebirth is that instead of running as a fast, compiled C++ program, the library instead will use the relatively slow JavaScript used in Web applications. Fortunately for the project, the top five browser makers all are making significant improvements in JavaScript execution speed.
Category: 3D Computers, 3D Games
