VRML Tutorial

By Markus Roskothen

You are hungry for VRML? You have no clue what the VRML specification is talking about? You want to *l-earn* it from the ground up? Then dive right in and let me help you learn the basics.

All the tutorials are original and tested. Please look for the symbols at the beginning of each section, e.g. 'WV2' stands for WorldView2 and 'CP2' stands for CosmoPlayer2. I focus on these VRML browsers mainly because I am too lazy to check other ones.

All you need to start is a copy of the VRML specification, a text editor (SitePad), and of course a VRML plugin (WorldView or CosmoPlayer). Have fun and let me know whether you liked it.If you are looking for literature I can recommend a few books to you:

The VRML 2.0 Sourcebook is the Bible of VRML. All the nodes are explained with samples and the hypertext version is very useful. Late Night Vrml 2.0 with Java is the book of choice if you want to get into Java scripting. If you don't like the very technical VRML2.0 specification you might want to check out The Annotated VRML 2.0 Reference Manual. This book explains all nodes in great detail.

A spartan version of the tutorials (58 kb) can be downloaded for offline learning.

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VRML Primer and Tutorial

By Daniel K. Schneider and Sylvere Martin-Michiellot

The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) can been seen as a 3-D visual extension of the WWW. People can navigate through 3-D space and click on objects representing URLs (including other VRML worlds). Often, VRML is pronounced like ``Vermal'', not ``V-R-M-L''.

As Mark Pesce [Pesce, 1995, p. 16] points out, the WWW had two fundamental dimensions: connectivity (the http protocol) and interface (i.e. the rendering of content, especially HTML and embedded URLS). VRML inserts itself seamlessly in the Web's connectivity. VRML browsers can access other VRML files via an URL. They can access any other format that then is passed to another application (e.g. an HTML browser or a HTML window). On the other hand HTML browsers can be configured to fire up VRML helper applications (or plug-ins). HTTP servers, finally, can be configured to tell the client that a VRML (*.wrl) document is transferred.

A short word on its history: The major impulse for VRML can be traced back to a ``birds of the feature sessions'' on ``Virtual Reality Markup Languages'' at the First International Conference on the World-Wide-Web, May 25-27, 1994 at CERN in Geneva. It's conceptual origins are older, e.g. (a) Science Fiction literature (e.g. [Gibson, 1994], [Stephenson, 1992]), (b) Mark Pesce's, P. Kennard's and Toni Parisi's ``Labyrinth'' system ([Pesce et al., 1994]) and proposal for a 3-D navigation and representation scheme and (c) more generally 3-D computer graphics (including VR). Based upon SGI's ``Open Inventor'' format, a almost final draft for VRML 1.0 was presented at the second WWW conference in fall 94 in Chicago. On April 3, 1995 SGI presented WebSpace, the first publicly available VRML browser. So all in all it took about a year to set standards and make the first browser available. Since VRML is a relatively simple format building upon a well defined standard, very quickly a number of modeling tools and convertors also became available.

In the next sections we will look at simple static VRML scences. These are built with VRML's symbolic description language. Note different VRML browsers all have a different user interface (e.g. for navigation and object examination). They also render things a bit differently. Most will also give you a ``quality'' choice (e.g. faster renderning and lower quality vs. slower rendering but better quality. For now, let's just assume that the user can move himself though 3D space by moving a camera through the space (and therefore what he sees on the display is what sees ``his'' camera).

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VRML Interactive Tutorial

By Antonio Ramires Fernandes

Hi, thank you for visiting my VRML Interactive Tutorial.

Good news for IE users! You can now fully benefit from this tutorial. I've updated the Try It Yourself section so that you can play with the worlds and update the VRML.

This tutorial covers the basics of VRML97 providing limitless source code due to its interactivity. Look for the "TIY" (Try it yourself") button on the top of some of the pages. Pressing this button opens a new window where you can play with the parameters and view the results. Source code using your parameters is also provided.

The left frame provides an index to the tutorial. There are sections about specific nodes as well as concepts required to fully understand all the fields involved.

This tutorial is likely to have bugs, and concepts which are not clearly explained. Please e-mail me, press the BUGS button, with bugs and suggestions. These e-mails will be much appreciated and will help me to provide a good tutorial.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial,

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VRML Audio Tutorial

This is a guide to learning how to implement sound in VRML 2.0 files. It's assumed you know a bit about VRML 2.0 and its basic features and functions. You will also need Cosmoplayer to view and hear the examples. For best results, use headphones or be centered between a pair of speakers that are facing out parallel to each other.

Introduction

The VRML 2.0 specification allows for the implementation of spatialized, 3D audio in a world. Spatial audio is sound that has been processed to give the listener a sense of the location of a virtual sound source in a virtual listening space. The process involves the use of Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) algorithms that mimic the way humans intercept and perceive sound, specifically the reflections off the pinnae (outer ear) and shoulder, as well as the shadowing effect of the head itself. This gives a heightened sense of immersion and realism in a virtual environment. The uses of spatial audio in a virtual world range from music and sound effects for entertainment to aural navigation for the visually impaired. As more uses for audio are implemented into virtual worlds, it will likely become as neccessary as graphics in order to create a quality experience.

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Texture Mapping in VRML

by Cindy Ballreich

The purpose of this page is to describe how textures ought to work if you follow the VRML specifications, not necessarily how they actually do work. Many of the browsers out there only support part of the spec, and a few probably don't support it correctly. The examples posted here for VRML 1.0 have been tested with WebSpace 1.1 for SGI and the examples for VRML 2.0 have been tested with CosmoPlayer beta2 for SGI. Both of these browsers seem to support the spec fairly well. If you encounter problems displaying any of these examples, you've probably uncovered a browser related problem. I'll try to point out areas that cause problems with browsers when I can.

Whenever you see the word "example" highlighted on the page, you can click on it to see a VRML illustration of the process being discussed. I've put copies of the examples in the text to make it easier to see the syntax. I would suggest that you save the examples to your disk and modify them to help you understand the concepts we'll be talking about. Several people have asked me to make an archive containing all of the examples available for downloading. The archive for the VRML 1.0 section is called tex-examples.tar.gz.

There are several good books about VRML on the market and all of them discuss texture mapping. I would suggest that anyone interested in VRML get one or two and read up on the subject. Rest assured that any book you find will be at least partially out of date by the time it's published, but the basic information will still be very useful.

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Introduction to VRML

VRML 2.0 is a scene description language which is human readable. There is currently no ratified API associated with VRML. The language has the following capabilities:

• Built in geometric primitives including face sets and solids
• Lighting, material, texure, movie control
• Spatialised sound
• Absolute time for animations
• The concept of an avatar to allow collision detection
• Hyperlinking, viewpoints and navigation methods
• The ability to extend the language through prototyping
• Event handling to detect when geometry is interacted with in some way
• Routing of events to allow one object to affect another
• Scripting in various languages which allows logic in the world

VRML files describe a scene graph structure which is parsed by a browser. The browser may be a plug-in for a web browser or a helper application.The scene graph is composed of nodes which fall into two categories, grouping nodes and others. These nodes may have routes between them, above and beyond the scene graph hierarchy, which define the possible interactions of one node with another. Nodes have fields which define what actual values the node has associated with it.

Within this scene graph certain special nodes, known as bindable, have stacks associated with them which allow them to be pushed and popped to control certain world parameters.

Confused? Don't be, all this is explained in the concepts sections. The bottom line is this, it has never been easier to write 3D graphics.

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Introduction to VRML 97

By David R. Nadeau

VRML (the Virtual Reality Modeling Language) has emerged as the de facto standard for describing 3-D shapes and scenery on the World Wide Web. VRML’s technology has very broad applicability, including web-based entertainment, distributed visualization, 3-D user interfaces to remote web resources, 3-D collaborative environments, interactive simulations for education, virtual museums,virtual retail spaces, and more. VRML is a key technology shaping the future of the web.

Participants in this tutorial will learn how to use VRML 97 (a.k.a. ISO VRML, VRML 2.0, and Moving Worlds) to author their own 3-D virtual worlds on the World Wide Web. Participants will learn VRML concepts and terminology, and be introduced to VRML’s text format syntax. Participants also will learn tips and techniques for increasing performance and realism. The tutorial includes numerous VRML examples and information on where to find out more about VRML features and use.

These tutorial notes primarily contain two types of information:

• General information, such as this preface
• Tutorial slides and examples

The tutorial slides are arranged as a sequence of 500+ hyper-linked pages containing VRML syntax notes, VRML usage comments, or images of sample VRML worlds. Clicking on a sample world’s image, or the file name underneath it, loads the VRML world into your browser for you to examine yourself.

You can view the text for any of the VRML worlds using a text editor and see how I created a particular effect. In most cases, the VRML files contain extensive comments providing information about the techniques the file illustrates.

The tutorial notes provide a necessarily terse overview of VRML. I recommend that you invest in one of the VRML books on the market to get thorough coverage of the language. I am a co-author of one such VRML book, The VRML 2.0 Sourcebook. Several other good VRML books are on the market as well.

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3D Graphics & VRML 2.0

by Laura Lemay, Justin Couch and Kelly Murdock

As you can see from the title, this book really has a split personality-the first half is about 3D graphics and the second is about VRML. However, these two topics are very closely related. VRML scenes are 3D graphics, and 3D graphics are used in VRML scenes.

3D graphics on the Web are pervasive because they are graphics. VRML on the Web is a hot new technology that enables real-time 3D. By covering both, you get a broader look at how to enhance your site with many facets of 3D graphics, instead of just one.

In the past, we've all marveled at this technology from a distance. We've seen it in movies, in arcades, and in some of the latest research environments; now we're seeing it on our home pcs. The power of current processors coupled with 3D acceleration cards are making it possible to experience advanced 3D graphics everywhere, especially on the Web.

To begin, we will introduce this unique series, 3D graphics on the Web, and VRML 2.0. A lot is included, and there's a lot you can get out of it.

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