The typical method used to represent 3D graphics for applications such as video games is that of a textured meshed. Essentially the object is made up of a mesh of flat triangles and a 2D texture graphic that is applied over the mesh to give it its colour and depth. However, this is not the only way to represent 3D graphics. Another method for representing 3D graphics is that of a point cloud which is a set of coloured points in 3D space. While a point cloud is usually larger than a textured mesh in terms of amount of data, it provides a level of realism not found in a mesh. Furthermore, some 3D scanning equipment such as 3D scanners, LiDAR equipment, medical scanners, and MicroSoft's Kinect all deliver their data as point clouds.
XB PointStream provides a framework to simplify the streaming and rendering of point clouds allowing them to be rendered in a web page without any plug-ins. WebGL, a JavaScript API based on Open GL ES 2.0 enables the creation of 3D content in the web browser without any plugins. It is currently implemented in release version of Firefox and Chrome and development versions of Safari and Opera. To support the creation of 3D content many web libraries have been written. However, most of these libraries are based on textured meshes. XB PointStream is different from these other libraries in that it focuses on point clouds. It is highly customizable to adapt to different file formats and provides support for addition of customizable shaders.
