IT giants back up open source 3D Web
Original article at Maxping.org.
First prototype of the 3D web is already run at thousands of Opensim servers all around the globe. The 3D Web bears similarities to 2D Web; Users can follow links to teleport from a 3D world to another one. 3D Viewers are used to browse the 3D content on the servers.
The 3D web software consists of Opensimulator server, comparable to Apache, and a 3D browser, comparable to Firefox. Today there are already many 3D browsers to choose from, the most advanced one called realXtend viewer.
The Opensimulator movement started early 2007 when Darren Guard published his C# reverse engineered Second Life compatible server. The Opensimulator (Opensim) project was born (read some history here).
Later many companies, most notably IBM and Intel (check Intel’s ScienceSim effort and their latest work with Opensim) have joined the Opensim project. Microsoft started to support Opensim indirectly via its C# user community. Even though there are big companies involved, the project backbone is built on hundreds of volunteer contributors.
Nokia joined the band by backing up the realXtend project. The realXtend project is mostly focusing on the 3D Viewer and user experience; It developed an enhanced 3D Viewer for Opensim based on Second Life viewer. Now the realXtend project is building a from-scratch 3D Viewer for the Opensim platform and Modrex module to support viewer enhancements at the server.
3D worlds have already, even in the current prototype form, spawned many business cases: IBM has demonstrated data-centre managing application and Virtual meetings with integrated Sametime product. Architects are using 3D web to show house plans to customers. Green Phosphor is visualizing data for medicine industry. Immersive Education initiative, collaboration of hundreds of universities, is evaluating and using virtual worlds for education.
Open source seems like the only way to implement the new 3D Web. No company or government wants to tie their applications to a single commercial closed source software provider. The big companies know this and they can not afford to ignore open source movement.
By the end of 2009 3D Web is developed into a stable and usable form that most probably allows mass adoption.