Once upon a time, 3D for the Web promised to be as easy as building a Web page. Unfortunately, 3D -- even simple 3D -- is more complex than displaying scrolling text and pictures. Each VRML vendor implemented a different subset of the spec, and it never gained traction. And so 3D on the Web faded away. Or did it? It turns out that VRML lives on in its XML flavor, X3D, which has grown to encompass VRML's siblings H-Anim (Humanoid Animation) and GeoVRML. Can 3D on the Web finally be used for more than virtual shopping malls? The latest installment of this mini-series on XML media shows that it can. This article focuses on a couple of uses that X3D is ready for now, and takes a look at where it might go in the future.
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