A 3D plug-in was developed using the OpenSG 2.0 scenegraph API and the browser plug-in implementation for QT4. This plug-in was built as the basis for rendering the 3D models in the webpage. The plug-in can be used in any web browser supporting the ``npruntime'' API, such as Netscape, Mozilla FireFox, Opera. The npruntime is an extension to the original NPAPI to supports plug-ins in browsers. This extension to the API enables the plug-in to be scriptable and access the scripted objects in the browser. Current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer do not support this API; but the Qt solution includes an ActiveQt framework to compile a single plug-in library that works with most web browsers.
The advantages of using an OpenSG based web plug-in over simply an OpenGL or composite window is that it provides access to the multiple functionalities already embedded in the scenegraph API. For instance, the loaders for different file formats, scene managers and rendering optimizations for the scene. Hence, the plug-in is not bound to current implementations of 3D for the web. As such, having one plug-in supporting different file formats is similar to having one media player plug-in supporting multiple video formats. Nevertheless, disadvantages include packaging/bundling the OpenSG libraries so the plug-in can be easily distributed and installed.
Video
Video showing the plugin in action on a testing website: mpeg
Related Papers
- Karina Rodriguez-Echavarria, David Morris, David Arnold Web Based Presentation of Semantically Tagged 3D Content for Public Sculptures and Monuments in the UK In Proceedings of web3D, June 2009. [pdf]