3D Comes To The Web Again

Back in the day (OK, the 90s) there was a thing called VMRL. Great things were predicted for 3D content on the web. Meetings were held at SIGGRAPH. Consortiums were formed. Consumers said “Meh!”.

Now 3D in a browser is back… and twice! First, the latest WebKit supports CSS 3D transforms. Download the latest WebKit here and see the very cool demos of CSS 3D here. Second (though released earlier), Google has released O3D - a plugin which provides a 3D API to JavaScript - demos here.

Of the two, CSS 3D is the perhaps the most elegant, requires no effort on behalf of the consumer (it’s built into the browser) and is therefore likely to succeed (see three things about consumers). Plugins can, of course, do anything inside a browser - in theory you could run Windoze on a VM in a plugin in a browser - but downloading and installing a plugin is beyond most users - though they’ll manage if there’s really compelling content viz. Flash. VRML required a plugin and that whithered away.

So, I’m not so optimistic on the future use of O3D. I don’t see users queuing up to run 3D games in a browser. Why bother? What does running in a browser give you that running networked standalone does not? Oh, cross platform yes, assuming plugins are ported. But remember Java3D? Me neither.

It is, of course, all about content. Web 3D didn’t get off the ground the first time around because what content there was was slow to load, poorly textured and came with jerky action and the need to install a plugin. This time around, though, things are different. And by different I mean faster. Faster networks and faster 3D on consumer devices - lots of consumer devices. Expect to see gratuitous 3D fx taking over from gratuitous Flash fx in a browser near you. Something to look forward to. I for one welcome are new multi-dimensional overlords.