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VRML: The Internet in Three Dimensions

© Robin Friedman

VRML has been around for over a year. Many people are thinking, "If it's been around that long, and it hasn't caught on, it can't be that good." Well that's the mystery of VRML to me. Why hasn't it caught on? Well, lack of a standard and little corporation press have contributed.

VRML stands for the Virtual Reality Modeling Language. It is a client-based 3d modeling language. You're just writing text so it only takes seconds to download. You can create complex worlds that are loaded in just a few seconds. You can create 3d animations or movies complete with sound that load twice as fast as an avi or quicktime movie. The user can navigate this multidimensional world and interact with objects in it. VRML can create anything from image showcases to movies to games to site maps to interactive worlds to anything your mind can dream up.

And you can interact VRML with Javascript, which in turn can interact with Java. So VRML can do anything Java can, albeit indirectly, and has full control over the browser with javascript. So you could combine all three languages to create, say, a 3d poll. The user travels through a VRML world, selecting which graphical option they want to choose. Then VRML gives the information to a javascript function, which gathers information about the user, and passes it on to a Java applet. This saves the information to a disk, and then javascript displays the poll results. This should give you an idea of just how powerful VRML really is.

Silicon Graphics corporation, the parent of VRML, recently released their VRML plug-in, Cosmo player 2.1, which lets you view VRML files. This is setting the standard for VRML viewing and programming, so the problem of lack of a standard has just been solved. Download the Cosmo player at Cosmosoftware.com. It's a free 3.2 megabyte download, and well worth the wait.

When you've got the plug-in installed, check out this site. This is the coolest VRML I have ever seen.

Chances are, you're not using VRML for your programming needs. Spread the word. VRML is one of the coolest application of the Internet that I have seen.

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