3D graphics through the Internet—a “shoot-out” (panel session)

3D graphics through the Internet needs to move beyond the current lowest common denominator of pre-computed movies because these movies excessively consume bandwidth and are non-interactive. Panelists will demonstrate and compare new approaches for accessing, analyzing, and collaborating on 3D graphical information through the Internet and World-Wide Web. This "shoot-out" will illustrate which tools are likely to be the best for the various types of 3D graphical information, including dynamic scientific data, 3D objects, and virtual environments. The computer graphics community (and especially SIGGRAPH) can provide a major service to mankind by promoting the use of graphical tools that improve the effectiveness of the Information Superhighway. A significant step in this process is.an open comparison, evaluation, and discussion of the graphical tools being proposed. The panel provides this step by having demonstrations and open discussions of the proposed tools. The issue is much larger than just the issue of data formats for Internet. The tools should provide for efficient access of the information, effective analysis, and effective collaboration with others over the Internet. The organizer has selected tools for demonstration that he believes have the greatest potential at this time. The selected tools for 3D objects and virtual environments are QuickTime VR and QuickDraw 3D by Apple Computer [1, 2], WebSpace by Silicon Graphics [3], and a public domain 3D browser from the Geometry Center of the University of Minnesota [4]. QuickTime VR is based on images. QuickDraw 3D is a cross platform 3D graphics API. WebSpace and the Geometry Center's public domain browser are based on the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) described in [5]. The selected tool for 3D scientific data is the FASTexpedition described in [6]. (It is not expected that one tool will be the best for all applications.)