Interactive 3D models on Wikipedia
Interactive 3D models on Wikipedia would be a new, engaging way for people to use Wikipedia and learn about subjects involving physical objects, from astronomy to cities to biology.
I'll demonstrate a prototype of a new MediaWiki media handling extension called PDBHandler running on Wikimedia Labs that uses WebGL to enable interactive 3D models of biological molecules, like proteins and DNA. As part of that, I'll discuss how the extension currently degrades for users on browsers that don't have WebGL enabled.
Possible future areas for development include:
- Supporting interactive 3D models for users without WebGL, with a non-WebGL HTML5 Canvas fallback
- Improving speed by compressing WebGL data with webgl-loader
- Enabling other types of interactive 3D models on Wikipedia, like models of other types of chemical compounds, buildings (e.g. 3D warehouse) or anatomy (e.g. Google Body/Zygote Body)
- Porting this work to use the upcoming embedded scripting framework revealed on Friday.
Presenter
emw dot wiki @ gmail dot com
Length of talk
10 minutes for presentation, 5 minutes for Q&A
- Comments
http://timemachine.gigapan.org/wiki/Main_Page may be of interest for 2+1D. Who has the best solutions for 3+1D? Something on http://www.wikiviz.org/wiki/Tools or mw:Extension:Jmol (or mw:Extension:Embed3DMLW)?
- Thanks for the pointers. Looking at http://timemachine.gigapan.org/wiki/Main_Page, it seems like a way to timed media handling, e.g. video. Handling 3D + 1 (like timed animations for 3D, where the model cause also be interacted with, e.g. after pausing) would be a great feature. I recall hearing that Jmol has a feature to that effect. I think the main drawback of Jmol is that it requires using a browser plug-in (Java applets). There's also an open bug where it's been suggested that Jmol be converted to a media handling extension (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16491). I haven't been able to find a demo of mw:Extension:Embed3DMLW, but looking at the sample code on its MediaWiki page seems to suggest it requires downloading a browser plug-in. Emw (talk) 16:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
Would https://launchpad.net/canvask3d help with WebGL fallback? 71.212.249.178 04:44, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
- CanvasK3D looks like an interesting library. PDBHandler uses Three.js (https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js), which seems like it would make supporting CanvasK3D an obstacle in terms of needing significant development time, though it might be possible. I recall seeing that Three.js has a non-WebGL canvas fallback for interactive 3D models, but I can't find it at the moment. Emw (talk) 16:01, 15 July 2012 (UTC)