Augmented Reality Roadmap for X3D October 2011 Page 1 Web3D Consortium Augmented Reality Roadmap for X3D Position paper for the Fourth International AR Standards Meeting October 24-25, 2011 - Basel, Switzerland Anita Havele – Executive Director, Web3D Consortium, USA Abstract Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) operate across many display devices, ranging from small hand-held mobile phones to laptops, desktop, and full-blown walk-around CAVE spaces. There is always a combination of both 2D imagery and 3D graphics, plus a mix of the real world and virtual worlds. Numerous innovative AR activities are ongoing by many researchers, companies and study groups. Coordination and collaboration between numerous developers and standards organizations is likely necessary for AR to eventually become a seamless part of the Web infrastructure. Web3D Consortium?s X3D standard is a mature standard with several implementations and many converters. Multiple implementations and extensions for AR have been demonstrated in X3D. These efforts have been successful because X3D integrates numerous proven technologies, providing a simple and coherent way for authors to create 3D models and VR applications. X3D?s extensibility provides the ability to extend the standard with new profiles and components, allowing it to "play well" when moving from simple mobile applications to bigger models and spaces and integrate with the web environment of HTML, JavaScript, and DOM, The future consumer demand for AR applications will go beyond the current use of geo-located points of interest. Web3D Consortium is working on new paradigms to develop standards that address the larger 2D plus 3D space for AR. Currently the Consortium is harmonizing proven capabilities into best practices for AR and 3D graphics, implementable by multiple X3D viewers, and usable by content authors. X3D, a reliable and viable standard, can save considerable time for developers looking to design new AR applications. 1. Motivation: Value of the X3D Standard for AR Extensible 3D graphics 1 a royalty free and ISO certified open standard developed by the Web3D Consortium 2 that originated from VRML, and now encoded in XML, already has capabilities to support AR and MR applications. X3D is a mature standard it unites numerous proven technologies together, providing a simple and coherent pipeline for authors to create 3D models and VR applications (X3D Examples) 3 . (See X3D Use Cases) 4 Because there are multiple implementations and extensions for AR that have already been demonstrated for X3D (See X3D-AR Examples) 5 , it is clear that we can build an AR component for X3D. It will have lightweight capabilities suitable for mobile devices, plus additional compatible capabilities that work with larger 3D scenes and spaces. We will take advantage of X3D extensibility to define component levels and profiles that capture these palettes as easily expanded extensions. Current AR efforts include proposing X3D components for AR/MR applications and a critical lightweight X3D profile suitable for mobile devices. Many people are especially interested in lightweight AR that they can use as part of GPS-aware mobile devices. It is sometimes tempting to think of a mobile device as simply a rotatable 2D display situated within the 3D real world. However, 2D displays by themselves can be limiting and oversimplified. The X3D group is thinking in terms of the larger 2D plus 3D space that many AR authors and users want.
