Brad Stone, writing at the useful Bits blog at the New York Times in late March, reports on Vivaty’s beta tests, and in the process provides a micro-history of 3D on the Web. Vivaty launched its browser-based 3D beta service through Facebook in early April. I’m curious to hear feedback on how successful the integration with the social networking sites has been.

Stone interviews the chief platform officer and vice president of Vivaty, Tony Parisi. Parisi has put in his dues trying to develop 3D worlds on the Web, contributing to the development of both the VRML and X3D standards, precursors to Vivaty’s proprietary 3D platform. VRML was loudly denounced, but X3D was more successful and is currently used with MPEG-4 media format.

“Nothing is as immersive as a full 3D environment,” he wrote. “And nothing is as relevant as a 3D experience you control with your own content and share with your own friends.”

Parisi and Vivaty could very well, however, be competing with his old, non-proprietary platform. X3D is still very much an active specification, and has the major support of the Web 3D Consortium, a group that is as, their Web site says, “utilizing its broad-based industry support to develop the the X3D specification, for communicating 3D on the web, between applications and across distributed networks and web services. Through the well-coordinated efforts with the ISO and W3C, the Web3D Consortium is maintaining and extending its standardization activities.”