Technical note on X3D and X3DOM

Eliciting Insight from Mandala-style Logos in 3D (Part #6)

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The visualizations variously presented are experiments -- best evaluated as "proof of concept exercises". They are constrained by the limited competence of the author in relation to the evolving protocols for the elaboration of such models and their dissemination over the web. Technical and aesthetic imperfections may be evident -- readily eliminated by professionals. Typically they suggest design alternatives and aesthetic improvements in terms of choice of colour, rate of movement and efficiency of coding, and access to informative viewpoints. Portions of the coding may be redundant or simply inefficient.

Many of the models -- especially the more complex -- have benefitted from the occasional advice and assistance of Sergey Bederov of Cortona3D, to whom thanks are due, although this implies no responsibility for the final result. This intervention has been vital to the efficient display of the crown chakra dynamics, especially when embedded within a torus -- given the constraints on the display of wireframe views via X3DOM, notably on a smartphone. A word of caution needs to be noted in that ongoing developments in X3DOM may disable displays currently operating satisfactorily.

The X3D models indicated above can be freely downloaded for further experimentation. Features of the models can be modified with a simple text editor -- and then viewed using applications that are freely available.

The ability to present over the web the models indicated here, which display correctly in 3D using such applications, is constrained by ongoing progress in development of the X3DOM facility -- in which they have been embedded in HTML pages (to which links are provided here). Colour rendering may notably be a problem, as with the visibility of models in wireframe (mesh) mode -- when "m" is pressed during display of the model.

X3DOM (in its current version) offers a number of options to explore a 3D scene displayed. More specifically, by holding down the left mouse button, and by moving the mouse, the object is rotated towards the direction defined by the mouse/cursor movement. Zooming in and out is enabled by holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse. By pressing the key 'M' a number of rendering methods are available to the user (The current version shifts between coloured point cloud and 3D mesh rendering). The key 'R' resets the viewpoint of the 3D scene, while keys 'F', 'E', 'W' enable the fly, examine and walk mode respectively. The key 'D' enables a rendering window where the model is visualised using a normalised colour encoded depthmap method that is used for detecting the point on the model which the user is pointing to.

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