Web-based simulation visualization using Java3D

The coupling of Java3D and applet technologies has the potential to revolutionize Web-based simulation visualization. Applets can enable the dynamic and distributed instantiation and elimination of viewers that until now was not possible. A visualizer based on these technologies is under development at the Air Force Research Laboratory´s Information Directorate. Unlike existing visualizers, that must be running at the simulation´s start time, this tool allows users to come and go as they please-effectively allowing them to peer into the state of a simulation at a place, perspective and time that is of specific interest to them. Intense 3D graphics have been difficult to program and distribute among heterogeneous environments until the inception of Sun Microsystems´ Java3D. Java3D provides users the best acceleration their platform can support, while the WWW provides the transmission and communication infrastructure. This paper discusses a government-owned, browser-based simulation visualizer that is capable of displaying simulated entities to any number of distributed sites