History of Jet3D

Jet3D took shape around 1999 as an evolution of work that followed the Genesis3D 2.0 effort. The source for Genesis3D 1.1 and a snapshot of the in-progress 2.0 code (without the web-delivery layer) was made available to the community, and a static image of the 2.0 effort was released as Jet3D on November 4, 1999 with the launch of the original jet3d.com website.

Through the early 2000s, various tools and experiments built on similar technology surfaced, while community contributors iterated on Jet3D itself. Over the years, development ebbed and flowed, with hosting and stewardship changing hands multiple times.

Today, the current Jet3D codebase is substantially more stable and featureful than its earliest public snapshot. Even so, as other open-source engines grew in popularity, Jet3D’s community naturally became smaller.

Despite that, Jet3D retains a certain old-school charm—an approachable, real-time 3D toolkit that’s still fun to explore and learn from.