This work studies the challenges of 3D applications on the web. It analizes the current scenario of 3D web applications, the reasons of the low adoption of existent solutions, what works well, and what doesn t work. It is then suggested a new approach for the construction of 3D worlds and interactive applications. The study is focused on the X3D standard because it is open, supported by an international consortium, mature and in constant development, but with a low adoption rate. The X3D qualities and problems are discussed and correlated with other solutions. In this process it was detected some necessities in current applications and the complexity of X3D to deal with these issues. As an attempt to demonstrate that the complexity of X3D in some aspects may be reduced, the DWeb3D toolkit was built. DWeb3d is a toolkit to help the development of dynamic X3D applications. It was created as a way to demonstrate that it is possible to facilitate the development process, increasing the access to developers in this area. The toolkit provides tools to deal with publishing, synchronism, interactivity, multiple users management and disk persistency.