best language for 3D manipulation over web ?

[Jacqueline L. Spiegel]

Hi All,

I will be writing a program that needs to be accessible over the web that
will seek to manipulate objects in three dimensions through the access of an
oracle database.  I could be manipulating as much as 32 MB of memory (with
respect to data only)  in space.   I would also need to slice and
interpolate information on the fly.  I am a Java programmer, but my fear is
that Java is not as fast as it should be in order to handle such
manipulation (assume users have at least a T1/cable modem connection, and
are not going in by 56K modem)

What is the best language for this ( I will need to do GUI programming as
well).

Although I am really comfortable with Java and prefer to go this route, I am
wondering if there is a better and faster way (I feel that Java is slow in
general, even for 2D).   If you recommend another language, can you please
recommend which 3D library and GUI library that I would use, as well as
explaining how I (or the language's API) connects to the web browser  ?   I
am not experienced with "Applet" creation outside of the Java language.

You attention is greatly appreciated with regard to this matter.

CC-ing email to jackie at popmail.med.nyu.edu, would also
be greatly appreciated.

Jacqueline