"[Our] aim it to make something that seems almost like a tactile environment, to change the way people interact online," said Mike Roberts, lead designer of GEL and the creator of the "wiring" technology used in Kinetix' Hyperwire product.
He laments that today's Web has stopped evolving in any major way. "Today, the technology of the Web has become stalled; there is only incremental change."
Roberts and his fellow researchers (Servan Keondijian, a co-author of Microsoft's Direct3D; Doug Rabson, also a co-author of Direct3D and a FreeBSD core member; and Peter Kennard, chief architect of Autodesk Animator) will present the basic technology at the annual graphics confab known as Siggraph 99 on Wednesday.
Quake for business?
Instead of home pages, "avatars" -- the representation of users in cyberspace -- would have 3-D homes that could be decorated and landscaped. Instead of invisible data, users could pass "tangible" files and books to each other.
Based on object-oriented technology, GEL uses a computer-science discipline known as graph theory -- the "g" in GEL -- to denote the relationships between objects in the virtual world. For example, a house that someone created would be connected to the rooms, furniture and people inside the house; if you move the house, its related parts would follow.
In addition, the project has eschewed the typical polygons that 3-D games have made popular, opting instead for a curve-based technology known as non-uniform rational B-splines, or NURBs. The result is more realism, Roberts said.
That 3-D engine that renders the scenes has been provided by London-based Qube Software.
The team has made the entire project open-source, which means that any interested programmer will be able to download the source code and use it to develop applications. In addition, while initially the team is developing for the Windows 98 and NT operating systems, OpenBSD and Linux will soon be added.
However, any applications from the technology are still a ways off, Roberts added. "We are making a release during Siggraph, but this is not ready to be used right now," he said. "Six months down the road, it should get real interesting."
As of Tuesday, the development material could still not be downloaded from GEL site.
Isn't there something called VRML?
Originally, a technology known as the virtual reality mark-up language, or VRML (pronounced VIR-mal), was aimed at creating a three-dimensional Web. While the language is an agreed-upon standard, adoption by consumers has largely stalled.
For Roberts and his cohorts, VRML's main problem was its lack of interactivity. "VRML was never really designed with interactivity in mind," he said. "We went all the way back to the white board and built GEL from the bottom up to make interactivity a prime component."
Yet, VRML is following the same path, said Linda Hahner, a spokeswoman for the Web3D Consortium, a collection of companies pushing to bring 3-D browsing to the Web. The next generation technology, known as Extensible 3-D or X3D, will allow different components to be added on to the 3-D applications, including interactivity.
"(The GEL project) sounds great," Hahner said. "They have already talked with some of the VRML folks. Hopefully, they will want to work with us." The Web3D Consortium plans to announce the steps it is taking to bring more interactivity to its 3-D Web applications on Wednesday.
The computer scientist has visions of the multi-user technology leading to better entertainment and business experiences.
GEL is not the only 3-D technology on the virtual block.
