The Cultural and Natural Heritage Working Group is a working group of the Web3D Consortium concerned with the development of new extensions, best practices and techniques in the domains of Cultural and Natural Heritage. This comprises the work of institutions seeking to capture, archive and distribute 3D representations of cultural objects and natural (biological) objects typically held in institutional collections of one sort or another.
The Heritage Working Group seeks to identify portions (subsets) of X3D that can be applied to cultural and natural heritage collections. The group will identify gaps in X3D that may be appropriate to fill with new specifications, and will develop best practices and techniques for the application of X3D to these domains. In addition the group will identify specific areas of work in which group participants will contribute. When appropriate the group will specify changes and/or additions to X3D and assist the X3D Working Group to move those changes through the ISO process.
Specific tasks are determined by the working group as needed to meet the goals listed above. These may vary considerably over time. A listing of current tasks, including deliverables and timescales, will be maintained on the community wiki web page and/or the Heritage Working Group web page.
The Heritage Working Group normally follows the Board of Directors approved Web3D Consortium Working Group practices defined on the Working Group Practices web page.
Meetings are held at as determined by members of the Heritage Working Group and at their discretion. The date, time, and duration of the meetings are determined by the membership of the Working Group to not conflict with other Consortium activities. The working group normally appoints two officers or more, as co-chairs, to lead the group.
The Heritage Working Group is an open group, so that broad community engagement is possible. All participants (member or not), must sign the Web3D Consortium Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy. Any member of the Consortium may attend any Heritage Working Group meeting. Any member of the Consortium may join the Heritage Working Group by becoming a member of the Heritage Working Group Mailing list and regularly attending the Working Group meetings. Any member of the WG may, at their own discretion stop being a member of the WG. Regular participants are listed in the minutes of the meeting.
The Heritage Working Group has no dependencies external to the Consortium.
The Heritage Working Group will not enter into external dependencies that are not previously approved by the Web3D Consortium.
Agenda and minutes are available to WG members, and are published in the Heritage Working Group members mailing list. At the discretion of the Working Group, selected portions of the minutes of the meetings may be published in a public area (web site, public mailing list, etc.).
The Heritage Working Group maintains a Working Group page on the Web3D Consortium website and a members-only mailing list.