The way I understand it, the first big effort at 3D virtual world web pages was VRML, which failed because it required users to download and install a Plug-in (or so I was told).  Most of us cringe at installing anything on our mochines for various reasons, I guess mainly fear of the unknown and lack of familiarity, so it's not surprising that this might be the case.  

Enter Processing, specifically Processing.js, with all of it's lovely modern 3D capability designed with user interaction in mind as well as a few other features and we have the makings of a 3D virtual world web page yet again but this time no plugin required!  There is the minor issue that IE users can't run these 3D web pages but all emerging tech has such limitations anyway.  

So I'd like to once again (and now that it's largely complete) "Share My Work" with you all in the hopes that you can educate me on what role such a beast might eventually play in the grande scheme of things.  The Metaverse Core 3D web page is a simple one, kind of slow moving actually, in which you pilot a cute little UFO around a cartoonie version of a solar system.  Each celestial body is represented by a sphere, has text, and also links to another web page.  Also there is an image floating around near the sun of a wireframe apple just to show that images work too.  

So it has text, images (2D and 3D), and links - it's a web page!  It's a game!  It could be a presentation or a news broadcast or a subatomic particle demonstrator or a fashion show or whatever you want, all in glorious 3D virtual world splendor!  It can run fast and dazzling or slow and smooth, however you like.  Now I ask you, isn't that something kind of cool?  I kind sorta feel as if Processing has, as I said in the post title, made the future vision of the past become a reality today.  

So three cheers for Processing, 3D worlds and web pages in general, and a pat on the back of yours truly for realizing that it could be done (prolly following in the footsteps of others as is usually the case).  I invite you to add your two cents and (gently) correct any misinformation i've babbled about here, and please if you have a moment to respond, do a little brainstorming on this.  It's way cool!  

Les