Revelation: 3D in Avalon
Greg Schechter wrote a blog entitled, Introducing 3D in Avalon and 2D/3D Integration. He says, and I quote:
2D/3D IntegrationThe programming model of Avalon is fundamentally a 2D one. Elements are rendered via painter's algorithm, back to front. There's no notion of interpenetration of elements. A challenge for 3D is figuring out how it fits into this 2D world. The approach we arrived at is pretty straightforward - each 3D “world” or “scene” (called a Model3D) is an island onto itself. It takes a Model3D to be paired up with a Camera before it can be incorporated into the 2D world. The Model3D+Camera can be thought of as a 2D projection of the model from the viewpoint of the camera, and that projection is what gets incorporated into and composited with the 2D scene. The 2D element that represents this combination is called a Viewport3D, and is just as full-fledged an element as our Image element, Text element, etc.
As other bloggers have said before. This model works for most desktop applications, but falls short for games programming where the 3D experience needs to be much more emersive.