[Proposed] WebVR Working Group Charter
Status: this is a charter for review by the W3C Advisory Committee for a possible W3C WebVR Working Group.
The mission of the WebVR Working Group is to help bring high-performance Virtual Reality (VR) to the open Web via an API to interact with virtual reality devices in browsers.
| Start date | [dd monthname yyyy] (date of the "Call for Participation", when the charter is approved) |
|---|---|
| End date | 31 August 2019 |
| Charter extension | See Change History. |
| Chairs | Anssi Kostiainen, TBD |
| Team Contacts | Dominique Hazael-Massieux (0.2 FTE) |
| Meeting Schedule |
Teleconferences: topic-specific calls may be
held Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year. |
Background
With the rising availability of a wide range of head-mounted displays, Virtual Reality (VR) has recently emerged as a critical field of evolution for human-machine interactions.
The Web provides a promising preexisting ecosystem for the creation, distribution, and experiencing of VR content, applications, and services.
As explored during the October 2016 W3C Workshop, a first step in exploiting that potential relies on allowing browsers to display and react to content adapted to available head-mounted displays. The Community-Group incubated WebVR API has already gained interest from a number of implementors, and this Working Group thus aims at building on that momentum to standardize it as part of the Open Web Platform.
Scope
The WebVR Working Group will develop standardized APIs to provide access to input and output capabilities commonly associated with virtual reality device hardware such as Google’s Daydream, the Oculus Rift, the Samsung Gear VR, the HTC Vive, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets and sensors. In other words, the WG will develop an API to enable the creation of virtual reality web sites that one can view in a VR headset. This VR experience must be embeddable in the Web of today to allow progressive enhancement of existing web sites.
The scope of the WebVR Working Group charter is to define APIs which:
- Enable a Web page to detect available virtual reality devices.
- Allow querying a virtual reality device for device-specific capabilities.
- Receive updated information about the device's position and orientation over time.
- Present imagery to the device at the device native frame rate.
Out of scope:
- Define how a Virtual Reality browser would work.
- Take full advantage of Augmented Reality devices.
Success Criteria
In order to advance to Proposed Recommendation, each specification is expected to have at least two independent implementations of each feature defined in the specification.
Each specification should contain a section detailing any known security or privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.
Each specification should have an associated testing plan developed in parallel, and completed by the time the specification reaches Candidate Recommendation.
Each specification should contain a section describing known impacts on accessibility to users with disabilities, ways the specification features address them, and recommendations for minimizing accessibility problems in implementation.
Deliverables
More detailed milestones and updated publication schedules are available on the group publication status page.
Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state.
Normative Specifications
The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:
- WebVR API
-
This specification describes support for accessing virtual reality (VR) devices, including sensors and head-mounted displays on the Web.
Expected completion: Q3 2018
Other Deliverables
Other non-normative documents may be created such as:
- Use case and requirement documents;
- Test suite and implementation report for the specification;
- Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.
Timeline
- Sep 2017: First teleconference
- Oct 2017: FPWD for WebVR API
- Nov 2017: First face-to-face meeting
- Dec 2017: Wide Review of WebVR API
- Mar 2018: CR for WebVR API
- Q3 2018: Rec for WebVR API
Coordination
For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, performance, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD and CR, and should be issued when major changes occur in a specification.
Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:
W3C Groups
- WebVR Community Group
- The WebVR Community Group will provide the WebVR API "v2.0" seed specification to begin the standards process. The WebVR API v1.1 maintenance is expected to continue in parallel in the Community Group.
- Device and Sensors Working Group
- The Device and Sensors Working Group develops the Generic Sensor framework, which may provide valuable integration point with sensors that integrate with VR devices.
- Web Application Security Working Group
- The Web Application Security Working Group develops the Permissions API as well as guidance on the definition of powerful features, both of which might apply to the features provided by the WebVR API.
- Web Platform Working Group
- The Web Platform Working Group develops the Gamepad API that the WebVR API re-uses in the context of VR controllers.
- Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group
- The APA Working Group will review deliverables for accessibility implications and help develop solutions.
External Organizations
- Khronos Group
- The Khronos Group is in charge of the WebGL specification on which WebVR heavily relies for its operations. The Working Group will coordinate its roadmap with planned evolutions of WebGL. The group will also track and coordinate with Khronos VR standard initiative.
Participation
To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.
The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.
Communication
Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed on a public repository, and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.
Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the WebVR Working Group home page.
Most WebVR Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.
This group primarily conducts its technical work on the public mailing list public-webvr-wg@w3.org (archive) and on GitHub issues. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.
The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.
Decision Policy
This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 3.3). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.
However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress, but consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote, and record a decision along with any objections.
To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email and/or web-based survey), with a response period from one week to 10 working days, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised on the mailing list by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.
All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.
This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes), and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.
Patent Policy
This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (5 February 2004 Version). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.
Licensing
This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.
About this Charter
This charter has been created according to section 5 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.
Charter History
The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3):
| Charter Period | Start Date | End Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial Charter | [dd monthname yyyy] | 31 August 2019 | N/A |