I know you most likely haven’t come across many websites which have 3D elements and you may think having a 3D view of a product is 3D but most likely it is comprised of about 30 images taken from lots of angles and are sewn together digitally without you realising.

There are a lot of fun technologies going on in the web developer world which is making it easier to develop a 3D website and at the front is three.js, a JavaScript framework which uses webgl to create a 3D environment on your webpage which can then be populated with objects.
This method uses JavaScript, a well-known language in the developer community, and recently saw a new framework introduced called Aframe which allows you to write your own 3D website in html which makes it even easier for new developers to get involved.
But what is the point of a 3D website, Well eBay are working on a 3D marketplace using three.js to display their products, which means you could see the product you want to buy in 3D from all angles and it could be designed to be in the correct scale to see how big the product is.
There’s also the growing social movement, with Facebook developing plans for immersive VR, having already created a headset which could be used to move around a 3D website with ease and would provide better interaction between friends.

A 3D marketplace would also be an

interesting concept and could improve the selling of products. If done right, it will spark a trend on other marketplaces like Amazon, although you would imagine that if anyone is driving innovation, it would be Amazon.
Unfortunately there are normally drawbacks when new technology emerges and 3D websites are no different as it will use a lot more bandwidth as we need models which are larger than 2D images. This means increased data usage, slower load speeds (in non-high speed areas) and potentially decreased usability.

User hardware will also be a drawback as these 3D websites will in essence be games, and webgl which is the backbone of 3D websites. This will use graphics cards which the majority of consumers do not have, so it will take a few years for people and manufactures to accept the need to include it, especially in lower budget models.

Over time, as technology evolves, we will see more and more 3D websites cropping up as either the demand from target audience increases organically or demand develops through the marketing of hardware advances. Exactly what direction this takes is unknown, but what is for sure, is that big companies like Amazon and Facebook will see the potential and invest heavily to change the game. The question is, are you up for playing it?
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