Does anyone remember X3D[1] / VRML? X3D is roughly the same concept, 20-some years ago. Here's a hello world for X3D: https://www.web3d.org/x3d/content/examples/Basic/X3dSpecific... And here's a hello world for OpenUSD: https://www.openusd.org/release/tut_helloworld.html#viewing-... Although X3D is a bit more verbose, a lot of parallels can be drawn between the two, 20 years apart. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X…
I do remember VRML. I read a book about it and spent some time playing around with it in the mid-90s. I didn't follow it closely enough to know when it died off (I'm assuming it died off since I haven't heard it mentioned much in decades).
All the plugins that used to be needed to display VRML online are gone now, but you can still display VRML 2.0/97 files online using JavaScript library called X_ITE [1]. I used it recently to view some old VRML I had saved but could no longer view. Works great.