Is Flash the future of the 3D web?

While much of the discussion about 3D consumer tech focuses on TV, gaming and 3D home cinema, let's not forget that the 3D web experience is also set to be a major driver of 3D technology in the home.

A new WebGL tech demonstration shows off 3D models of asteroids striking a rotating planet, which is causing some developers to suggest this might well be a threat to the current graphical dominance of Flash on the web.

3D in your browser

"We believe that 3D on the Web should be a first-class citizen running directly in the browser and not through plug-ins," said Tim Johansson, core developer at Opera recently.

But can WebGL offer better tools to those from Adobe when it comes to 3D graphics in a browser?

The Mozilla principal engineer who helped create WebGL certainly thinks so, telling CNet: "WebGL likely won't be finalized until early 2011, though a provisional 1.0 spec may arrive before the end of 2010."

Microsoft seems to be holding out on WebGL, for now at least, mainly because Flash works fine on Internet Explorer.

Yet there is chatter amongst web developers that this might all change with IE9.

For its part, Adobe's 3D Flash offering, code-named Molehill, should be made available to users in beta sometime mid-2011, according to Anup Murarka, Adobe's director of product marketing for the Flash platform.

"I'm thinking end of the second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter," said Murarka.

"There have been numerous options available for some time - other 3D plugins. That's something we're used to," Murarka added. "Our value is making this consistently available.

"I think the biggest element of the last 18-24 months has been rebuilding the foundation of our code base so it would be capable of being delivered across multiple screens. Designing the foundation to scale across desktop, mobile, tablet, and television is not a trivial undertaking," Murarka continued.

"Doing an entirely new 3D pipeline and engine isn't a simple task either."