Declarative integration of interactive 3D graphics into the world-wide web: principles, current approaches, and research agenda

With the advent of WebGL, plugin-free hardware-accelerated interactive 3D graphics has finally arrived in all major Web browsers. WebGL is an imperative solution that is tied to the functionality of rasterization APIs. Consequently, its usage requires a deeper understanding of the rasterization pipeline. In contrast to this stands a declarative approach with an abstract description of the 3D scene. We strongly believe that such approach is more suitable for the integration of 3D into HTML5 and related Web technologies, as those concepts are well-known by millions of Web developers and therefore crucial for the fast adoption of 3D on the Web. Hence, in this paper we explore the options for new declarative ways of incorporating 3D graphics directly into HTML to enable its use on any Web page. We present declarative 3D principles that guide the work of the Declarative 3D for the Web Architecture W3C Community Group and describe the current state of the fundamentals to this initiative. Finally, we draw an agenda for the next development stages of Declarative 3D for the Web.