Now that WebKit supports 3D transformations via CSS (and that's totally awesome), it needs a 3D image format that can be transformed with them! Here's a use case where it'd be great: I've created a prototype 3D dungeon crawler entirely using WebKit's 3D CSS Transformations, CSS Transitions, and JavaScript. It shows you a first person POV of a dungeon maze, which you can walk through using the arrow keys. But since CSS transformations apply to HTML elements and all HTML elements are rectangular planes, the dungeon crawler can only show flat, rectangular surfaces like floors and walls. There's no way to place any three dimensional image like a chest, ladder, or monster into the scene. Supporting a 3D image format like X3D would allow me to place objects inside that scene with almost no additional work. Another use case would be a blog or news site that uses 3D transformations to provide flair to elements like menus and sidebars. Using a 3D image for a DIV's background and then transforming it using CSS, a designer could make it look like a three-dimensional slab of marble rather than a flat marble-textured rectangle. Doing the same to a drop down menu could give it the appearance of depth as it descends through three dimensional space. This would be a huge boon to plugin-free browser-based gaming and a cool addition to any web site that already benefits from 3D transformations. For this use, WebGL would not be fit my needs. WebGL is very exclusive; the entire scene would have to be engineered using a complex JavaScript graphics library and it would not mix well with CSS or other HTML elements. Thanks!
WebGPU might be best suited API for this and CSS might be to overwhelming and difficult to produce desired 3d effect without leading to increased complexity. @Simon & @Karl - any input?