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VRweb 1.5
=========
VRweb is a freely available browser for 3D worlds and scenes modeled
in VRML (the Virtual Reality Modeling Language). VRweb is developed by
the Institute for Information Processing and Computer Supported New
Media (IICM) of Graz University of Technology, Austria.
VRweb is the only free VRML browser available in full source code,
which does not require commercial packages such as Inventor or Motif,
and which will run on (almost) any Unix or Windows platform.
Release 1.5 is now available for Unix, including source code.
The current windows version is still VRweb 1.1 Beta 5.
More information can be found at the VRweb homepage:
http://www.iicm.edu/vrweb
Note the spelling of VRweb: it is VRweb and *not* VRWeb !
^ ^
New features
------------
o Editing functionality (by Alexander Nussbaumer)
- editing existent VRML 1.0 scenes or
creating new ones from scratch
- object translation/rotation/scaling via direct manipulation
- transformation constraints (collision detection)
- applying textures, editing materials
- view and manipulate the scene graph structure
- definition of anchors, inlines, viewpoints
o Rendering
- transparent objects
- Mesa 2.1: faster flat shading on 8bit displays (dithered)
- Polygon anti-aliasing (OpenGL only)
- red-green Stereo rendering (by Karl Heinz Wagenbrunn)
o Misc
- nested WWWInline nodes: proper base URL
- destination URLs (#viewpoint)
- View pulldown menu with viewing/selection functions
- select previous/next viewpoint with PgUp/PgDn
- Passing VRML 2.0 files to a helper (e.g. VRwave)
- bugfixes
Supported Platforms
-------------------
UNIX (VRweb 1.5):
o SGI: OpenGL and Mesa
o SUN Solaris: Mesa
o SUN OS: Mesa
o DEC ALPHA: OpenGL and Mesa
o HPUX: Mesa
o IBM AIX: Mesa
o LINUX: Mesa
o BSDI: Mesa
Windows (VRweb 1.1b5):
o Windows NT: OpenGL
o Windows 95: OpenGL
o Windows 3.x (win32s): Mesa
The Mesa library (by brianp@ssec.wisc.edu) is an OpenGL workalike
which supports 3D graphics through standard windows calls (X11 or
Microsoft Windows).
OpenGL needs a working GLX extension for your X-server, is part of the
Windows NT operating system, and is freely available for Windows 95.
Source Code
-----------
VRweb source code is availabe for both UNIX/X11 and Windows.
UNIX/vrweb-1.3/vrweb-src-1.3.tar.gz contains the source code for
UNIX/X11. It is covered by the GNU GPL (see COPYRIGHT and
LICENCE). See file INSTALLATION for an installation guide.
The source for the Windows version is available in Windows/vrw_src.zip,
including Makefiles for Microsoft Visual C++ 2.x. Read file readme.src
as installation guide.
How to Get It
-------------
VRweb is available by anonymous ftp from:
IICM ftp://ftp.iicm.edu/pub/VRweb
and all mirror sites listed in file MIRRORS.TXT at the above location.
Features
--------
New: VRweb 1.5 allows editing of VRML scenes via direct manipulation.
See above ("new features") for more information and the online help
for details.
VRweb supports most of VRML 1.0 using a parser based on QvLib 1.0.
Some non-standard VRML extensions (Inventor) are also handled
(e.g. LightModel), others are reported and ignored.
Supported features include: Grouping, Separators, Coordinates,
Normals, Materials, Cameras, Light sources, Transformations, primitive
shapes, IndexedFaceSet, IndexedLineSet, PointSet, MaterialBinding,
ShapeHints (except concave faces), LOD (level of detail), and
Texturing (formerly limited to inline textures).
WWWAnchor support with Netscape, Mosaic and Harmony under UNIX (since
release 1.1).
Several navigation modes: "Flip", "Walk", "Fly", "Heads-Up", "Fly
To". Flip is a kind of examiner, Heads-Up is an easy to use walk
viewer. Note the short hints in the status line. Fly To is used for
controlled approach to a selectable point of interest (available since
Release 1.1). See the explanations in the on-line help (available
since Release 1.1).
Optional switching to a lower display quality during motion.
Collision detection (Rel. 1.1.2).
WWWInline nodes are fetched sequentially (on encountering them, can be
inside an LOD to defer loading) directly by VRweb via HTTP, via a
proxy (1.3), or from the local file system (rel. 1.2).
Inline data are gunzipped automatically, redirects are handled,
relative URLs are handled properly when the parent URL is given on
commandline. The transfer can be interrupted at any time.
Textures (rel. 1.2) are loaded when switching the drawing mode to
texturing (ctrl-t). Supported formats are JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and PNG.
Transparent textures (GIFs, PNGs, inlines) are handled properly.
AsciiText (rel. 1.3) is rendered as polylines (for speed), FontStyle
attributes are supported. There is currently no fixed-width font.
Optional use of a BSP renderer. Although presorting of polygons to
eliminate Z-buffer usage did not yield the performance increase
expected, the implementation can serve as base for future work and for
algorithms that do not work in conjunction with depth buffering (e.g.
polygon anti-aliasing, blending techniques).
VRML 2.0
--------
VRweb supports VRML 1.0. Current work concentrates on development of
VRwave (http://www.iicm.edu/vrwave), the VRML 2.0 successor of VRweb.
The new name VRwave is intended to distinguish the VRML 2.0 browser
written largely in Java from VRweb (the VRML 1.0 browser written in
C++). In terms of look and feel, VRwave is a direct successor to
VRweb.
Mailing list
------------
A mailing list for VRweb is available, where you can send questions
and get feedback from the developers and other VRweb users.
To subscribe, send mail to
listproc@iicm.edu
with message body
subscribe vrweb YourNameHere
(no subject needed).
To unsubscribe, mail "unsubscribe vrweb" to listproc@iicm.edu
Should unsubscription fail, please notify mpi@iicm.edu for manual
removal instead of posting to the list. Thanks.
To send mail to all members of the list, simply compose your
message or question and send it to
vrweb@iicm.edu
Feedback
--------
Please note that VRweb is unsupported software, but feedback is very
welcome. Please send bug reports to
vrweb-bugs@iicm.edu
including the platform and version of VRweb you are using.
Send other comments, suggestions, questions about distribution
and licensing, etc. to
vrweb-info@iicm.edu
We do read all of the mail we receive, but unfortunately cannot
respond to every piece of mail individually. Please bear with us...
last updated: May 27, 1997
Michael Pichler,
Keith Andrews
|
