June 24, 1996
Issue: 616
Section: Interactive Age -- Web Design and Management
By Mitra
Without a doubt, the most important recent 3-D event has been the emergence of a new standard for Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)
During the course of just a few months, the VRML community chose the Moving Worlds proposal penned by Silicon Graphics Inc. (SGI) and partners as VRML 2.0. Moving Worlds won 76 percent of the vote over competing proposals, including Microsoft Corp.'s ActiveVRML.
The next stage in the development of VRML 2.0 will be an attempt to incorporate some of the better ideas from the losing proposals - in particular the binary file system from Apple Computer Inc.'s proposal, and the compression ideas from IBM or Sun Microsystems Inc. The final draft should be available in the next few months; see the VRML Architecture Group's site, at http://vag.vrml.org, for updates.
Now I must admit to some bias, since I co-authored Moving Worlds, but I believe that VRML 2.0 will be as big a change for the 3-D world as the Java programming language has been for 2-D.
In many ways the changes are similar. Before Java, Web pages were static. Java offered the possibility of adding functionality to pages, making them animate and linking content to other live sources of information.
VRML 2.0 brings the same potential to 3-D. A VRML 2.0 file contains Script Nodes, which are links to behaviors. The behaviors can control, change, add to or delete parts of the VRML scene. The standard supports scripts written in any language, but it remains to be seen whether anything other than Java achieves wide cross-platform support.
VRML 2.0 will offer other improvements over VRML 1.0, some of which have been available in proprietary extensions before. They include:
- Sounds: Directional or Ambient sounds that are located within the 3D world.
- Backgrounds: Most VRML 1.0 worlds hang in a black field
- Interpolators: Simple interpolators support key-frame animation.
- Sensors: They will allow a world to react to user events, such as clicking on an object.
Both Apple and IBM had announced that they would drop their own proposals for VRML 2.0 and support the standard. Sun and Microsoft have yet to indicate whether they will support the standard or stick to their own proprietary systems.
Most of the key players in 3-D have already begun development on VRML 2.0 functionality in their browsers. In particular, the most popular browser, Netscape Communication Corp.'s Live3-D, is expected to be implemented in a few months.
Others, such as Black Sun Interactive Inc., also are known to be developing VRML 2.0 browsers. Since more than 60 companies endorsed Moving Worlds prior to its acceptance as VRML 2.0, it is to be expected that others will follow.
The endorsement of so many competing companies is worth noting. Moving Worlds built consensus around its proposal by making sure that the concerns of key members of the community were met, so that these companies can feel confident that the next generation of the standard will enable them to add the functionality they want.
We probably also will see some browsers which claim to support VRML 2.0, but really support just a subset, or an unusual interpretation of VRML 2.0. Caveat emptor.
While mentioning Live3-D we shouldn't forget the other big piece of not-quite-so-recent news, i.e. PaperSoftware Inc.'s acquisition by Netscape, which will dramatically increase the penetration of VRML into the browser market. Before the acquisition, many companies had been reluctant to include VRML on their sites because of the small percentage of surfers who would be able to view the content without downloading a browser specially.
With Netscape's purchase of PaperSoftware, however, we will see the most popular Web browser incorporate a native VRML browser, substantially raising the confidence level of users.
Mitra is chief network technology officer of Paragraph International, at http://www.paragraph.com, maker of the Virtual Home Space Builder 3-D authoring tool.
Copyright (c) 1996 CMP Media Inc.
