What To Use for Interactive 3D in Browser?

I want to display a 3D model on a website where people can rotate it in any direction. Years ago there were several different plugins for this, like Cult3D. What are people using these days? I don't want to use rendered sequences to simulate rotating a 3D image, but want to display the actual 3D model. Lastly, the model needs to be textured.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

WebGL, or some engine using it (didn´t Unity have some WebGL export option or something?). WebGL is quite perfect for something like that, the problem is just that it is only fully supported by Chrome and Firefox, last time I checked it was enabable in Safari and supposed to be there in Opera soon, Internet Explorer however won´t have it too soon due to security concerns
Then there also is some drawing functionality with HTML5 which should have wider support already, but it probably isn´t sufficent for more complex model rendering than a few cubes. So what you are left with for now is most probably flash...

As Slin said, browser support is the big issue there.
You can safely bet on Flash to work cross-browser and on all platforms, but Flash does not come with 3D functionality out of the box. You'd need to use something like papervision3D ( http://blog.papervision3d.org/ ).
Unity3D recently has ability to export to flash though, and you can create 3D content through that as well (which I think is the easiest way).

http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=1298
coppercube could work very well for what you want to do.
it can export to webgl and flash.

there is some solution for also making webgl work on ie. but i forgot its name.

PDF also supports 3D Models. But I guess that would be a rather expensive solution.

Since this is for the development of a website (or website components) for a company, supporting IE (as well as the other browsers) is important. I'm also reluctant to go the Flash route as businesses want their sites fully viewable on the iPad and iPhone as well.

Then you are out of options I fear. You have to use Flash on browsers without WebGL/HTML5 support and switch to WebGL/HTML5 on the others.

Why would you have to use Flash? What I mean is, there used to be a ton of plugin applications out there (like Cult3D) that would do the job. Where did they all go? Isn't there some Java solution?

Now I am even more curious about this ...

Flash is the plugin most people have. Everything else is just installed on a very very very small fraction of PCs. Using something required by Youtube, is a fairly good sign that even your favorite idiot has it installed

I know that. I've been at this for a long time. But I cannot help the wants/needs of a client, you know. If I can offer them a non-Flash solution, they will be all the happier.

In any case, this thread is NOT about the pluses/minuses of Flash or how many people have it installed. It's about solutions for delivering interactive 3D content via the web.

Why would a non-Flash solution make them happier?

I think I addressed this earlier in the thread. They, like many companies, want this function available when someone is browsing via an iPad or iPhone, which does not support Flash.

Ah, well it's worth noting that the iPad/iPhone browser doesn't support any plugins at all (from what I've read... I don't have one) or Java, so the only solution is WebGL. But IE doesn't support WebGL, so it requires a plugin or Java (and Java requires the user to have installed Java). Poking around, it appears a lot more internet users have Flash than Java (95% compared to 75%, thinks StatOwl).

There's no universal solution for your client, so you'll need two. WebGL/HTML5 for iPad and iPhone and some sort of plugin for IE users -- Flash seems to make the most sense.

EDIT: I don't actually know if iPad/iPhone support WebGL, but they apparently support HTML5 pretty well, and the conversation thus far seems to imply WebGL is the iPad/iPhone solution.
EDIT2: Looking back at earlier posts, maybe that won't even work for iPad/iPhone, in which case there's no solution.
EDIT3: But maybe sometime soon it will.

Well, with that need you won´t find a solution, although WebGL might be supported in the future, as it is already supported for iAds on iOS. While WebGL (and also native client, but that is chrome only) has to be supported by the browser all other solutions I can think of basicly run additional software which then renders into an area of your browser, which means that you´ve got no chance for something like that to run on iOS. So what I would do as it has already been suggested is to use WebGL where supported and flash everywhere else, nothing will work on iOS except some HTML5 canvas 2D stuff, which would probably be very slow, like this one: http://gyu.que.jp/jscloth/ (which I just tested on iOS and runs with something like 0.5fps on my iPhone 4s)

http://www.neoaxis.com/showcase/webplayerdemo

Good info, everyone. Thanks!

(And, thank you, Apple, for making this so frickin' hard on everyone ... and MS, too, damned IE)

I would create an app for phone that downloads the model from the internet and then displays it in opengl, and flash for the pc browser.

what would you use this for? for showcasing models you want to sell?

that wouldn't be a good idea since everyone will be able to grab your model. i would use movies in this case.

@ventilator: I think this is briefly referenced in this thread. There is a company that makes high-end sunglasses. They want 3D models of their glasses that the end-user can rotate and view from any angle on their website (integrated into their website). They want their site, with the 3D models, to work on all platforms, including the iPad and iPhone (so, no Flash).

Like it was already said a few times, there is no solution that works on all platforms. So you HAVE to use at least two solutions, or drop support for some platforms.
Its this simple, and I don't understand whats so hard to understand about this or why you don't want this solution.

My previous post was ANSWERING Ventilator's question. He asked the following:



I answered. I was not attempting to continue to seek an answer to how to do this for all platforms/devices. Perhaps you should read a bit before jumping in and spewing.

Oh, and just because there may not be a solution ... yet ... does not mean one cannot be created.

almost no user will install some custom 3d plugin. browser plugins are huge security risks. so you can't really create a better solution yourself but must use what is already there.



i think webgl would be the best way to do it and it will only get better.

on modern browsers it will work without any plugin, and on ie it will work with a plugin:

http://www.irrlicht3d.org/pivot/entry.php?id=1211
(it is free now also for commercial use.)

i am not sure about the support of webgl on mobile devices but sooner or later they will support webgl too.

and solutions like coppercube can export the same project to flash and webgl. so you could also use flash on ie instead of the IEWebGL plugin.

RealSerious3D, I think this is the part that got JustSid's attention:We've established already that "no Flash" is a very small part of the restriction placed by iPad and iPhone -- it's "no Flash" because it's "no browser plugins at all". And no Java. Given those restrictions, any developer would have a hard time creating a solution, and we really just have to wait until iPad and iPhone support WebGL or provide an App for users to download specifically to browse your client's catalogue -- and I can't imagine many people would want to download an app just to look at sunglasses in 3D.

Of course, you could go a little ol' fashioned and have a looping animation of the glasses rotating which, with some JavaScript, you should be able to allow the viewer to scroll back and forth. This way they can rotate the glasses, but will be restricted to one axis. And this'd work well on iPad/iPhone -- they don't support WebGL yet but they do support just about everything else in HTML5.

Yes, I was thinking about doing that, but really wanted to avoid rendering out all the frames (not that it's difficult ... client reasons). And you are not just restricted to one axis ... depending on how you put it all together.

Fair enough, and true

There are possible solutions for this in HTML5. I'm still investigating. If anyone is interested, let me know and I will update this thread.

Copperlicht is nice. I'm trying it out. On my poor graphics chipset 400000 vertices with texture runs rather fine in the browser. It is webgl and html5. Not sure how well supported this is on mobile platforms. At least it isn't in IE. But nothing fancy is supported in IE .

http://html5gameengines.com/ is nice

Edit: ah, ventilator also mentioned copperlicht ^^

Just found it. Maybe, it does the job.
http://www.sketchfab.com/

Looks pretty cool. I'll have to test how the embed works.