VRML

What's all this about then?

VRML stands for Virtual Reality Modelling Language. It's a way of describing 3D scenes in quite a compact way so as to make it viable over the web. VRML scene descriptions (.wrl files) are text files which build up the scene out of the normal primitives (cubes, spheres, cones, etc). To view VRML scenes, you'll need a VRML plug-in for your browser. The one I use is Cosmo, which, although a little flakey (it's just a little better under NT than 98) seems to do the job. And its the one that all the VRML-heads on the web use.

The term Virtual Reality might give you the wrong idea about VRML. You're not gonna be engrossed for years in one of these scenes, and (at the moment) interaction is limited to simple point'n'click with some rudimentary animation thrown in. Expensive VR goggles that make you look silly (remember them?) are definitely not required.

Wanna learn it?

All in all, VRML is quite a simple language to learn. The scenes I've got here took me about a day and a half's work, from never having seen any VRML code to producing a passable model of a tree. There are loads of books on the subject, but the easiest way to learn VRML is to do a search on VRML tutorials on your favourite search engine. Or just take a look at the links below.

My scenes

Here are a few simple VRML scenes that I created for a university assessment. They were created with a Java VRML writer which I wrote, so that the individual characteristics of the scenes could be easily changed. Since I wrote the Java for an assessment, I'm not going to publish it here - if you want it then mail me.

Links