Bringing Online Shopping Into the Future With the 3D Web 70
An anonymous reader writes "While there is now the possibility of using 3D in the browser over WebGL, it is still hard for regular web developers to get 3D content into websites without being hardcore graphics programmers. XML3D, a project at the Intel Visual Computing Institute, tries to tackle that problem by having a very easy-to-use language as an extension of HTML5. The goal is to standardize it with the W3C. There are already modified Firefox and Chrome browsers that support XML3D natively. At Intel's Research Blog you can find a video on what shopping at an online store could soon look like. In the example, the user purchases a DSLR that can be fully interacted with in 3D, including attaching various lenses and an external flash."
Yay (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What a waste of time (Score:5, Insightful)
Right example, WRONG conclusion!
All too often when I shop on Amazon, products won't have adequate pictures that allow me to see a product from all angles and zoom factors. Many products don't even bother to list full specs. Just today I was shopping for a new projector, but many of them don't list the supported connection types, so it would be nice to be able to rotate and zoom a 3D model of the projector and visually verify that it has what I need.
If {online retailer} can't be bothered to snap a few pictures with their camera phone and/or copy/paste the product specs, what makes you think they'll bother to obtain a full blown interactive 3d representation of the device? This is why this is doomed (for online shopping at least).
Newegg (my personal favorite retailer of electronic goods except for cables, which is then monoprice) already does nice 2d pictures with zoom support so you can zoom in and see what connections are there, and you can often make out the tiny little labels even. Sometimes, they also have a 360 degree view, which is really just a series of pics shot around the product, and a slider that lets you change the pictures in order via flash (but could easily be done in JS or HTML5 etc). There is very very very little benefit to a complete 3d model over these, and it's a lot more work, it's more expensive to produce, it's less compatible with existing browsers, it's higher bandwidth, and more difficult/complicated to use, and it will likely be lower resolution.
Still photos are by far the easiest thing for a retailer to add. Snap, and attach to the product profile. You're complaining (and I agree) that there aren't enough of these already... you're delusional if you think a 3d model will show up on all those products that don't even list the basic specs or more than one pic.
360 degree photos are also quite easy, especially for a big retailer that can setup one rig to do them (ex. a single camera, product on a lazy susan, spin it while shooting a movie or taking pics, paste result to 360 degree image maker or just make it a gif), and very few products have these even some of the best retailer sites.
3d online shopping - not going to happen. Stop expecting fancy new tech to solve operational issues that have simple solutions in place that aren't being used.
3d models on the manufacturer page - I can definitely imagine this showing up on high priced items.
full-body avatar (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm imagining online shopping for clothes, where your full-body avatar has all your dimensions and you get to see how clothes might look on you.