Enhancing X3DOM declarative 3D with rigid body physics support

Abstract

Given that physics can be fundamental for realistic and interactive Web3D applications, a number of JavaScript versions of physics engines have been introduced during the past years. This paper presents the implementation of the rigid body physics component, as defined by the X3D specification, in the X3DOM environment, and the creation of dynamic 3D interactive worlds. We briefly review the state of the art in current technologies for Web3D graphics, including HTML5, WebGL and X3D, and then explore the significance of physics engines in building realistic Web3D worlds. We include a comprehensive review of JavaScript physics engine libraries, and proceed to summarize the significance of our implementation while presenting in detail the methodology followed. The results obtained so far from our cross-browser experiments demonstrate that real-time interactive scenes with hundreds of rigid bodies can be constructed and operate with acceptable frame rates, while the allowing the user to maintain the scene control.

Animation on the web

“…Nonetheless, there is a lot of research done recently concerning WebGL and rendering objects on the web [Congote et al 2011;Schilbach 2014;Stein et al 2014;Stamoulias et al 2014]. WebGL 2.0 promises to bring many more features to the table, and there are several interesting avenues that need to be explored, such as using the GPU to parallelize the computing process (on the browser), protecting intellectual data post-transmission, and efficient reproduction of the animation data.…”

“…Here, we compare some of the current solutions and methods : [Doboš et al 2013;Sutter et al 2014] Binary transmission: A very simple and common approach which is used in XML3D , X3DOM [Stamoulias et al 2014; X3DOM], glTF [KHRONOS GROUP 2012] and Three.js [Cabello 2010]. The data being transmitted is encoded in textual representation (e.g.…”

“…The X3D standard supports a wide number of advanced 3D graphics functionalities, including key frame animations, humanoid animations (H-Anim) etc. [Stamoulias et al 2014]. X3D consists of nodes which handle various types of jobs within the framework, In order to handle key frame animations it goes through the following process: The TimeSensor node is used to control animation as time passes.…”

“…X3DOM & X3DOM Binary Geometry (BG): X3DOM allows X3D documents to be easily embedded directly into web applications by integrating X3D into the DOM[Behr et al 2010;Stamoulias et al 2014]. X3DOM operates as a connector which is responsible for the synchronization of the browser frontends and the X3D backend, by monitoring DOM updates in the X3D Depending of various factors, mesh can be decimated to various levels.…”

“Wrapping” X3DOM around Web Audio API

“…Stamoulias et al [22] suggest the implementation of the rigid body physics component in the X3DOM environment. A concept for the improvement of the shadow representation for X3DOM is provided by the Kuijper's group [3].…”