Xj3D 1.0 review

Xj3D is a project focussed on creating a toolkit for VRML97 and X3D content written completely in Java. This toolkit may be used t

License: LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License) File size: 0K Developer: Web3D Consortium

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Xj3D is a project focussed on creating a toolkit for VRML97 and X3D content written completely in Java.

This toolkit may be used to the import VRML content into your custom application, or to create a fully-fledged browser. Development is financially supported through a number of institutes and companies that we would like to heartily thank for their support!

The initial impetus for this project was to create a file loader for the Java3D API and started with a grant of code from Sun Microsystems to the Web3D consortium. Over time, the project has grown in requirements and now encompases many other features as well.

For example, it is being used as one of the main testing grounds to verify the work on the new X3D specification. We have moved beyond our original Java3D-only roots and now can work with many different renderers.

Xj3D is in continuous development. We haven't reached version 1.0 yet, but the next release should be it. In the meantime, we release stable development snapshots known as Milestones. Milestone releases seem to come about every 4 months apart and are usually timed to match major events such as Siggraph or the Web3D conference.

Between major milestones, we occasionally release development snapshots. There is no timing or regularity to these. They are usually made available when we approach a useful break point or have finished some significant piece of functionality and would like a bit wider usage audience than just those who track our CVS code.

Because these are dev snapshots, they don't have any formal release engineering or anything else like installers. Try at your own risk and we expect some reasonable level of programming compentence to install and get the code running. If you are a newbie to Xj3D and do not understand the intracacies of Java development, do not try these. They are offered without support.

What's New in This Release:
This release includes the new components CADGeometry, Geospatial, H-Anim, and DIS. Support for binary encoding is included.
All major operating systems are supported including Windows, Linux, Mac OS X (no universal binary yet), and Solaris.