Battle lines drawn for 3D on the Web

From CNET News.com: The Web is the next vanguard for 3D graphics, but programmers who want to embrace the new dimension next year will have to place a bet on one of two competing technologies: Flash or WebGL.

For years, Adobe Systems' Flash software has been the way to bring graphical games like Crush the Castle, Bloons, Desktop Tower Defense, or Stunt Bike Pro to the Web.

But at the same time, Web standards advocates have toiled to build such technology into the Web itself and not rely on the proprietary and sometimes insecure Flash Player plug-in. That work following in Adobe's footsteps is coming to fruition with the arrival of Web fonts, 2D graphics, audio and video, animated effects, and other features.

"We believe that 3D on the Web should be a first-class citizen running directly in the browser and not through plug-ins," said Tim Johansson, core developer at Opera.

That's a familiar refrain for Web development. There's s big difference with 3D, though: it looks like WebGL will beat Adobe's 3D Flash technology out of the gate.

"WebGL likely won't be finalized until early 2011, though a provisional 1.0 spec may arrive before the end of 2010," said Vladimir Vukicevic, the Mozilla principal engineer who helped create WebGL. Even more importantly, WebGL is the incumbent: developers for Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera all have begun building WebGL into their browsers.

View: Article @ Source Site