Mozilla Sets Standards for A 3D Web

Mozilla has joined forces with Khronos to create what could be a new standard for the World Wide Web: 3D browser graphics.

The creator of Firefox has joined graphics consortium Khronos to bring a public 3D browser-based environment within a year.

Mozilla's standard will allow Javascript (the basis of many web applications) to tap directly into OpenGL (the basis of many 3D Graphical User Interfaces (GUI)). With Quake Live being released last month, many developers are looking towards pushing other games to be browser based, including MMO's.

"One of the things which puts people off virtual worlds(MMOs) is that it requires users to make very big downloads to install the games," said Paul Jackson, an analyst with research firm Forrester, "Having them available directly from a web browser would eliminate this and have much wider implications for non-gamers."

In other words, you could be playing World of Warcraft at work without needing to have the full background engine, as the full graphical engine would be hidden within the browser.

He continued: "If you think about the traditional browsing experience of flat pages and links this is not a natural way to interact. People are much more used to walking around and picking things up so a 3D browser could lead eventually to a more naturalistic way of interaction."

In addition to it's gaming applications, any 3D modelling system, such as medical, transport or Googlemaps could now be run directly from the browser.

While this is an interesting idea in theory, it does sort of lead you to the image of searching through Wikipedia as being like trying to find the Lost Ark of the Covenant.

Source: BBC

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I've been exploring such a concept for some time, and I had the money at the right moment, I may even tried to put down something along those lines, but after a second thought, I realized I wanted to enforce and port a sort of 3D cyberpunkish graphical interface to a flat screen.
The truth was that it was just making 3D for the sake of making 3D, and that's BS, because 2D for reading and navigation is unbreakable: click a link, the page loads.

As for the GUI, as I get, they plan to establish a standard where all games would work within this very browsser based interface, an intermediary web based OnLive, since the plan is, again, to avoid installing stuff on your computer, but actually work from a global interface which will be capable of "talking" with every game engine.

"He continued: "If you think about the traditional browsing experience of flat pages and links this is not a natural way to interact. People are much more used to walking around and picking things up so a 3D browser could lead eventually to a more naturalistic way of interaction.""

I think not having flat internet pages is unatural...this is a serious case of "dont fix what isnt broken."

(Thought it was appropriate.)

Seriously, just do it or don't do it. No need to rile us up this early.

Using it to play browser games? Sure. Actually trying to navigate a 3D webpage? No. That'd just end up incredibly cluttered and hard to navigate. 2D works perfectly fine for webpages because they are meant to be read. Like a book. Actually I can't even imagine what one would DO with a 3D web page outside of gaming...

I remember checking out a few "3d Web" applications years ago. They were pretty impressive, but also frustrating to try and find what you were looking for. Each person in it had to create content to fill it; so you were basically relying on everyone to fill this 3d world - sort of like second life without all of the insanity.

It could possibly be implemented in a good way - but I can't really imagine how that would be, and I'm not going to waste time with it since I'm not going to ever design it. Let someone come up with something awesome, and perhaps it will change the way we use the web.

There has already been multiple attempts at 3d web browsing.
You proberly havn't heard of them cause they have all failed. Big surprise there.
The one client I tryed was incredibly laggy and major frame rate issues. (my hardware isn't the issue)
and it takes incredibly long to get to a webpage.

But if you're into the social netowrking aspect of it you might want to give it a try, they might have improved it since the last time I tryed.
Link: http://www.exitreality.com/

Oh man. Maybe when 3-D interfaces come along, but... no, not now. Just headaches, large amounts of processing power and memory devoted to a BROWSER. It'd be innovative, sure, but unnecessary.

Not needed at the moment, but it's the thought that counts.