Sunday 7 March 2010

Firefox 3D browser

Researchers from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and the Intel Visual Computing Institute at Saarland University in Germany plan to release a version of the Firefox browser which includes the built-in ability to view 3D graphics. This is a capability that could (potentially) open the door for more interactive Web pages from developers. Up until now plug-ins have been created that allow 3D graphics to be viewed. The innovation of this latest approach is that one is no longer required.

The researchers have focused on real-time ray tracing, which is also aided by integrating real-time ray tracing technology, called RT Fact, into Firefox and Webkit, the rendering engine for browsers such as Safari and Chrome. XML3D is then utilized and the browser itself can render the 3D scene.

The approach was demonstrated at the recent Cebit trade show, where a Wikipedia entry on Venice was enhanced with a 3D walkthrough of one of the city's palaces. This an interesting approach and after many false strats on getting quality 3D in browsers it will be interesting to see it take off.

No comments: