SRC - A streamable format for generalized web-based 3D data transmission

A problem that still remains with today's technologies for 3D asset transmission is the lack of progressive streaming of all relevant mesh and texture data, with a minimal number of HTTP requests. Existing solutions, like g1TF or X3DOM's geometry formats, either send all data within a single batch, or they introduce an unnecessary large number of requests. Furthermore, there is still no established format for a joined, interleaved transmission of geometry data and texture data. Within this paper, we propose a new container file format, entitled Shape Resource Container (SRC). Our format is optimized for progressive, Web-based transmission of 3D mesh data with a minimum number of HTTP requests. It is highly configurable, and more powerful and flexible than previous formats, as it enables a truly progressive transmission of geometry data, partial sharing of geometry between meshes, direct GPU uploads, and an interleaved transmission of geometry and texture data. We also demonstrate how our new mesh format, as well as a wide range of other mesh formats, can be conveniently embedded in X3D scenes, using a new, minimalistic X3D ExternalGeometry node.