Part 2, Query Examples: Semantic Web3D: Towards Comprehensive Representation of 3D Content on the Semantic Web (paper) by Jakub Flotyński, Don Brutzman, Felix G. Hamza-Lup, Athanasios Malamos, Nicholas Polys, Leslie F. Sikos, and Krzysztof Walczak was presented at International Conference on 3D Immersion (IC3D) in Brussels Belgium, 11 December 2019.

Abstract.  One of the main obstacles for wide dissemination of immersive virtual and augmented reality environments on the Web is the lack of integration between 3D technologies and web technologies, which are increasingly focused on collaboration, annotation and semantics. This gap can be filled by combining VR and AR with the Semantic Web, which is a significant trend in the development of the Web. The use of the Semantic Web may improve creation, representation, indexing, searching and processing of 3D web content by linking the content with formal and expressive descriptions of its meaning. Although several semantic approaches have been developed for 3D content, they are not explicitly linked to the available well-established 3D technologies, cover a limited set of 3D components and properties, and do not combine domain-specific and 3D-specific semantics. In this paper, we present the main motivations, concepts and development of the Semantic Web3D approach. It enables semantic ontology-based representation of 3D content built upon the Extensible 3D (X3D) standard. The approach can integrate the Semantic Web with interactive 3D technologies within different domains, thereby serving as a step towards building the next generation of the Web that incorporates semantic 3D contents.

Jakub Flotyński reports that IC3D and the larger Stereopsia conference were quite interesting, particularly for the breadth of VR/AR/XR topics under consideration. The authors and Web3D Consortium members of the X3D Semantic Web Working Group are proud to present, explain and publish how the many capabilities of the X3D Ontology can someday lead to general-purpose 3D search.