Extensible 3D (X3D) is a software standard for defining interactive web- and broadcast-based 3D content integrated with multimedia. X3D is intended for use on a variety of hardware devices and in a broad range of application areas such as engineering and scientific visualization, multimedia presentations, entertainment and educational titles, web pages, and shared virtual worlds. X3D is also intended to be a universal interchange format for integrated 3D graphics and multimedia. X3D is the successor to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), the original ISO standard for web-based 3D graphics (ISO/IEC 14772). X3D improves upon VRML with new features, advanced application programmer interfaces, additional data encoding formats, stricter conformance, and a componentized architecture that allows for a modular approach to supporting the standard.

This section provides a background to the design objectives behind the development of X3D, an overview of the features of X3D and a description of the X3D specification process.

Design objectives

X3D has been developed to meet a specific set of market and technical requirements. To meet these requirements, X3D has adopted the following design objectives:

Separate the runtime architecture from the data encoding
Support a variety of encoding formats, including the Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Add new graphical, behavioral and interactive objects
Provide alternative application programmer interfaces (APIs) into the 3D scene
Define subsets of the specification ("Profiles")that meet different market needs
Allow for the specification to be implemented at varying levels of service
Eliminate, where possible, unspecified or underspecified behaviors

X3D features

X3D has a rich set of features to support applications such as engineering and scientific visualization, multimedia presentations, entertainment and educational titles, web pages, and shared virtual worlds. The X3D feature set includes:

3D graphics - Polygonal geometry, parametric geometry, hierarchical transformations, lighting, materials and multi-pass/multi-stage texture mapping
2D graphics - Text, 2D vector and planar shapes displayed within the 3D transformation hierarchy
Animation - Timers and interpolators to drive continous animations; humanoid animation and morphing
Spatialized audio and video - Audiovisual sources mapped onto geometry in the scene
User interaction - Mouse-based picking and dragging; keyboard input
Navigation - Cameras; user movement within the 3D scene; collision, proximity and visibility detection
User-defined objects - Ability to extend built-in browser functionality by creating user-defined data types
Scripting - Ability to dynamically change the scene via programming and scripting languages
Networking - Ability to compose a single X3D scene out of assets located on a network; hyperlinking of objects to other scenes or assets located on the World Wide Web
Physical simulation - Humanoid animation; geospatial datasets; integration with Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocols

For a complete list of X3D features, consult the component descriptions in clauses 7 through 29 of this part of ISO/IEC 19775.

General

Design objectives

X3D features