@gaieus said:
Hi Al (and Rich),
I don't think 3D PDF would become outdated soon. PDF is one of the most cross-platform and even cross-browser format (when embedded), can be easily sent by email or carried on a small drive since you can (almost) make sure that wherever you go and take (send) it, the other end will be able to see it.
thanks for the comments Gai.
PDF will probably survive, of course. But they have replaced the U3D format we use with a proprietary format. However, we suspect they will always have to display U3D, because otherwise legacy PDF files would stop working. We struggle with U3D because it never really worked properly. But Rich has made some improvements this past month and we will continue working with it.
I think will will add an embedded html page creator to the existing plugin - using PDF first. The advantage it that it will be fairly easy for people to modify the page we create for their own needs. (It is much easier to modify a web page than to create one from scratch). This should work pretty well with embedded PDF and PDF is well supported.
Also, we never learned as much about Flash as we should have. Perhaps a Flash/Collada option would work as an option.
The O3D/Collada route is interesting, if Google gets behind O3D. Unfortunately, my experience is that Google often releases an interesting software application - usually in Beta mode - and then never decides to continue it. (Witness Google Desktop). On the other hand, if they do get excited about something they throw a lot into it - (e.g. YouTube). We are hoping they see a future for O3D and want to go comewhere with it.