Distributed VR for collaborative design and manufacturing

Virtual Manufacturing (VM) applies Virtual Reality (VR) technology to provide a digital manufacturing solution in both 3D visual and interactive ways. It makes VR no longer a state-of-the art but rather an innovation technology to support modern industry. With the rapid growth of network technology and Web 3D graphics techniques, we propose a cost-effective distributed VM system for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) with limited equipment, funds and technical capabilities. The system enables SMEs to perform collaborative tasks including product design, manufacturing and resources sharing through the World Wide Web (WWW) in lower cost. This paper describes the design and critical integration issues of the system and the use of the Web 3D technology - X3D. It also evaluates the distributed VM system by comparing it to the conventional standalone CAD/CAM system

On porting software visualization tools to the web

Software systems are hard to understand due to the complexity and the sheer size of the data to be analyzed. Software visualization tools are a great help as they can sum up large quantities of data in dense, meaningful pictures. Traditionally, such tools come in the form of desktop applications. Modern web frameworks are about to change this status quo, as building software visualization tools as web applications can help in making them available to a larger audience in a collaborative setting. Such a migration comes with a number of promises, perils, and technical implications that must be considered before starting any migration process. In this paper, we share our experiences in porting two such tools to the web and provide guidelines about the porting. In particular, we discuss promises and perils that go hand in hand with such an endeavor and present a number of technological alternatives that are available to implement web-based visualization

Interactive topographic web mapping using scalable vector graphics

Large scale topographic maps portray detailed information about the landscape. They are used for a wide variety o f purposes. USGS large scale topographic maps at 1:24,000 have been traditionally distributed in paper form. With the advent of the Internet, these maps can now be distributed electronically. Instead of common raster format presentation, the solution presented here is based on a vector approach. The vector format provides many advantages compared to the use of a raster-based presentation. This research shows that Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a promising technology for delivering high quality interactive topographic maps via the Internet, both in terms o f graphic quality and interactivity. A possible structure for the SVG map document is proposed. Interactive features such as toggling thematic layers on and off, UTM coordinate readout for x, y, and z (elevation) were developed as well. Adding this type of interactivity can help to better extract information from a topographic map. A focus group analysis with the online SVG topographic map shows a high-level of user acceptance

COLLADA + MPEG-4 or X3D + MPEG-4

The paper is an overview of 3D graphics assets and applications standards.The authors analyzed the three main open standards dealing with three-dimensional (3-D) graphics content and applications, X3D, COLLADA, and MPEG4, to clarify the role of each with respect to the following criteria: ability to describe only the graphics assets in a synthetic 3-D scene or also its behavior as an application, compression capacities, and appropriateness for authoring, transmission, and publishing. COLLADA could become the interchange format for authoring tools; MPEG4 on top of it (as specified in MPEG-4 Part 25), the publishing format for graphics assets; and X3D, the standard for interactive applications, enriched by MPEG-4 compression in the case of online ones. The authors also mentioned that in order to build a mobile application, a developer has to consider different hardware configurations and performances, different operating systems, different screen sizes, and input controls