Metaverse One

  The FireFox folks on the MozVR team released this month the first version of A-Frame: an open source framework for creating WebVR experiences with very simple markup. For those that are unfamiliar with WebVR, it is the term used to describe virtual reality experiences that are accessible via a Web browser (opposed to VR experiences that are downloaded executables). Currently WebVR only works in the developer builds of Google's  Chromium  browser and Mozilla's  FireFox Nightly build. There are a few options for WebVR including  X3DOM , the standards based framework I use for my WebVR scenes. A-Frame is simply another Javascript framework for WebVR and since it leverages WebGL, the demos and scenes are viewable in any updated browser.   "A-Frame makes it easy for web developers to create virtual reality experiences that work across desktop, iPhone (Android support coming soon), and the Oculus Rift. We created A-Frame to make it...

I just wrapped up a fun weekend at a Virtual Reality Hackathon here in San Francisco. Located at Galvanize's downtown campus , the event brought together the diehards of virtual reality this Memorial Day weekend. Folks came from all around to work together and create some pretty amazing VR projects.       The winners and categories were: Best Web-based VR Project Winners  1st place: Team VR Party 2nd place: Team Planet Chase Best Mobile-based VR Project Winners 1st place: Team OKVR 2nd place: Team GoPro on Steriods Best Looking VR Scene Winner 1st place: Team Mole Quest  2nd place: Team VRecover Best VR Project of Show Winner 1st place: Team Wilderness Road VR Best X3DOM VR Project Winner 1st place: Team Dog Chase Best Samsung GearVR Project Winner 1st place: Team VR Transit A big thanks to the amazing San Francisco VR community and the sponsors for making this another great hackathon. The next VR Hackat...

I can say it with confidence in 2015, "The 3D Web is finally here!"  I have been involved with and covered web3D tech for years but it has only been since last year's support of  WebGL  (a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D & 2D graphics) by all the major browser vendors that web3D is truly ubiquitous on all desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. Gone are the days of having to download and install a plugin or app to run interactive 3D content via the web. The super exciting thing for me is that this web3d tech development has created a groundwork within HTML5 for the highly anticipated 3D Web. What is the difference between web3D and the 3D Web you may ask? I see web3D as all tech related to the delivery and rendering of static and interactive 3D content on the Internet. Google Earth, World Of Warcraft, 3D online gaming, virtual surgery, and military simulations are some examples of web3D applications.  Unity3D ,  Flash ,  X3D-Edit , an...

So this August in Vancouver, Canada was SIGGRAPH 2011 . SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) is the annual conference on computer graphics (CG) convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization and this was the first time it was held in Canada. The conference was attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals and had a strong presence of Canadian companies, developers, and schools (go figure). As usual, it had great sessions and a busy exhibit floor. I am thrilled to report that the Web3D Consortium BoFs were standing room only with people packed deep and spilling out the doors as there was a huge amount of interest in X3Dom and the current state of X3D for augmented and mixed reality . The WebGL sessions also presented to a full house. Truly a great event for web3D in general. As a fan of digital fabrication, I was happy to see companies like Shapeways , and 3D printer machine sellers there showing off their services and products. There wer...

Earlier this month was the second WebGL Camp in Silicon Valley. Organized by Henrik Bennetsen (CEO of Katalabs ) and Christian Greuel (Manager of SRI Geovisualization Center), the camp is a developer focused event that aims to bring together the people who are writing the WebGL spec with those who build projects on it for some show and tell. WebGL is based on OpenGL ES 2.0 and provides a programmatic interface for 3D graphics. It provides a 3D graphics API implemented in a web browser without the use of plug-ins. It uses the HTML5 canvas element and is accessed using Document Object Model interfaces. The specification is currently a work in progress and is managed by the non-profit Khronos Group. The event was a who's who from the WebGL community. The presentation list: Gavriel State and Daniel Koch from TransGaming provided a high level introduction to the ANGLE Project . ANGLE provides OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible API's on top of Microsoft's Direct3D. Presenta...

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Saturday May 29th was the first Vancouver Augmented Reality Developer Camp . Like the AR DevCamps before it, the focus was to be a full day of information sessions, discussions, tutorials, and hacking opportunities in an open format, BarCamp style to which all interested people and organizations are invited. The goal of this event is to build on the momentum of the ardevcamp initiative, with a focus on technology sharing, collaboration, and the portability and integration of information across diverse platforms and AR environments. Downtown Vancouver was covered with posters promoting the event which was hosted at the office of animation and visual fx studio Digital Alchemy Entertainment , conveniently in the same building as the Vancouver train station. A small and dedicated group of AR developers attended from the area and one couple as far as Portland for a full day of sessions and presentations from: -Tagwhat - CEO David Elchoness shared with the group Tagwhat , an augmented real...