I’ve been working on LookingGlass which is a stand-alone, you-have-to-download-it viewer for the OpenSimulator virtual worlds. I really wish one didn’t have to download the viewer. Viewing should just happen as part of the web.

I’ve looked at this several times and it looks like the infrastructure is maturing. WebGL is appearing or will soon appear in most browsers. This provides the basis for getting accelerated, 3D graphics on the screen. Additionally, it is standard in the browsers (IE is a problem, Microsoft being who they are, but Google has a plugin to fix that).

Recently, Google has decided to move their O3D project to being a scene graph wrapper for WebGL. This makes JavaScript connect to the 3D world reasonably while keeping all the 3D technology in the standard browser.

The new O3D is early in its development but it is coming. 3D on the web is just around the corner.

I have some ideas for data coding (more on that in a later post) but it required me to do some heavy weight math. It has been a long time since I did math so I needed some refreshers. One amazing resource is the online MIT classes at MIT Open Course Ware. They have video lectures, class notes and exercises for freshman to graduate.

I’m making my way through freshman calculus. Have to begin somewhere and I’ve forgotten a lot. It’s like a foreign language — if you don’t use it, you loose it.

The updates for LookingGlass have been happening over at the official web site.

Camera and avatar movement is MUCH smoother because of finding bugs and adding position and rotation animation code. That also means that movement of animated objects is now smooth. LG works great in OSGrid/Lbsa Plaza but larger sims like OSGrid/Wright Plaza stretch the bounds of memory. SkyX now works with OpenGL although the shaders aren’t all together for the sun and moon lighting. Avatars are still stuck in T-pose and attachments are at the feet. Sitting avatars now are near the sit location and not at the sim’s 0,0. Also upgraded to the latest libomv. A new Windows 32-bit installation package is in the download section.