While Application Programming Environments aren't generally exciting for non-programmers, it's important to know what they make possible.

I got a chance to see a demo of the Java 3-D API with Ken Tallman, a senior product manager at Sun Microsystems Inc.

In this case, Java 3-D, which has recently been ported to SGI Irix and Linux as well as almost every other major platform except the Mac, allows large 3-D models to be easily transported, viewed, and manipulated over even dialup Internet connections due to geometry compression. In addition, the API lets programmers write high-level, portable Java applications without worrying about the implementation details. The result is high-speed, high-quality 3-D displays.