Delivery of interactive 3D content is a non-trivial problem for humanities projects. Solutions have variously involved separate client programs, browser plug-ins, and rendering the 3D view on a remote server1. WebGL (Web Graphics Library) is a Javascript API which integrates hardware accelerated 3D graphics natively within the browser. This paper argues that WebGL is not just more convenient and sustainable than prior solutions, but that it has the potential to prompt a conceptual shift in the way virtual worlds and 3D reconstructions are used in the digital humanities.
The genesis for this thinking comes from a virtual world project called Ola Nordmann Goes West. Feedback from this project highlighted a hitherto unrecognised problem; that of 3D interactive environments being functionally and thematically divorced from the wider Web.
In response, we implemented a small portion of the project in WebGL and quickly found that it had other conceptual advantages. A 3D reconstruction is often a mediated outcome of multiple scholarly debates2. WebGL has the unique advantage of providing interactive 3D graphics as an entirely integrated layer of web content, allowing inline consultation of other resources which might justify (or question) the editorial decisions underpinning the 3D environment. Hence we explore the consequences of allowing a 3D visualisation to integrate with other web-based humanities analysis tools.
WebGL lessens the extent to which a virtual world or 3D reconstruction needs to be a final destination for a user. Instead the world can be consulted casually and manipulated fluidly as simply another form of distant reading, alongside more conventional close readings. We argue this is not just a technological luxury; it can allow digital humanists to interpret virtual worlds in fundamentally more sophisticated ways.
1 Dylla, Kimberly, Bernard et al., 2010. "Rome Reborn 2.0: A Case Study of Virtual City Reconstruction Using Procedural Modeling Techniques," in CAA 2009. Making History Interactive. 37th Proceedings of the CAA Conference p. 65
2 "The London Charter for the Computer-Based Visualisation of Cultural Heritage" (2009), <http://www.londoncharter.org/fileadmin/templates/main/docs/london_charter_2_1_en.pdf> p.4