  In this work we present first results of our current project aimed at
combining the 3D hydrodynamical stellar atmosphere approach with non-LTE (NLTE)
spectral line synthesis for a number of key chemical species. We carried out a
full 3D-NLTE spectrum synthesis of the oxygen IR 777 nm triplet, using a
modified and improved version of our NLTE3D package to calculate departure
coefficients for the atomic levels of oxygen in a CO5BOLD 3D hydrodynamical
solar model atmosphere. Spectral line synthesis was subsequently performed with
the Linfor 3D code. In agreement with previous studies, we find that the lines
of the oxygen triplet produce deeper cores under NLTE conditions, due to the
diminished line source function in the line forming region. This means that the
solar oxygen IR 777 nm lines should be stronger in NLTE, leading to negative 3D
NLTE-LTE abundance corrections. Qualitatively this result would support
previous claims for a relatively low solar oxygen abundance. Finally, we
outline several further steps that need to be taken in order to improve the
physical realism and numerical accuracy of our current 3D-NLTE calculations.
