VRweb 1.0 Beta 3 ================ VRweb is a browser for 3D worlds and scenes modeled in the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). VRweb is a joint project between IICM, home of Hyper-G, NCSA, home of Mosaic, and the University of Minnesota, home of Gopher. New in this release: *** VRweb for Windows NT, 3.x, and 95; and DEC Ultrix *** *** source code available for UNIX/X11 and Windows *** * VRML samples (in VRMLsamples.tar.gz and Windows binary zips) * faster Mesa driver under X11: flat shading dithered on 8bit display with no speed penalty smooth shading typically 5 to 10 times faster (use -mesabackbuf pixmap for old behaviour) * LOD (level of detail) supported URLs of announcements: - VRweb project (Apr 26 1995): http://info.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/T0x811b9908_0x0013fbf9 or in VRML mailing archive: http://vrml.wired.com/arch/1739.html - VRweb beta available: http://info.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/T0x811b9908_0x0015c9b3 - VRweb technical home page -- under construction: http://hgiicm.tu-graz.ac.at/Cvrweb/ Supported Platforms ------------------- UNIX: o SGI: OpenGL; Mesa o DEC ALPHA: OpenGL; Mesa o DEC Ultrix: Mesa <-- new o SUN Solaris: Mesa o SUN OS: Mesa o HPUX: Mesa o LINUX: Mesa Windows: <-- new o Windows NT: OpenGL o Windows 3.1 and 95: Mesa The Mesa library (by brianp@ssec.wisc.edu) is an OpenGL workalike that supports 3D graphics through the X server protocol (it neither needs nor benefits from HW accelerators). OpenGL needs a working GLX extension for your X-server and is part of the Windows NT operating system. Source Code <-- new ----------- VRweb source code is now availabe for UNIX/X11 and for Windows. UNIX/vrweb.src-1.0beta3.tar.gz contains the source code for UNIX/X11. Look at COPYRIGHT for usage conditions, and INSTALLATION for an installation guide. The source for the Windows is available in Windows/vrw_src.zip, including Makefiles for Microsoft Visual C++ 2.x. Read file readme.src as installation guide. How to use VRweb for UNIX/X11 ----------------------------- With your Web viewer you will need an entry similar to: x-world/x-vrml; vrweb-ogl %s in your ~/.mailcap (use vrweb-mesa on non-SGI platforms). Decompression should be dealt with by your web browser. If not, you can hardwire gzipped decompression, for example, as follows: x-world/x-vrml; gzip -cd %s | vrweb-ogl - With Harmony (the Hyper-G UNIX/X11 client) use the appropriate version of harscened (more information on http://hyperg.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at). Call any program with argument -h to get a short explanation of possible arguments. Features -------- Support of VRML 1.0 using QvLib 1.0 as parser. Invalid VRML nodes (read Inventor) are reported and ignored. Grouping, Separators, Coordinates, Normals, Materials, Cameras, Light sources, Transformations, primitive shapes, IndexedFaceSet, IndexedLineSet, PointSet, MaterialBinding. Since July 17: ShapeHints. Since Aug 3: LOD (level of detail). Several navigation modes: "flip", "walk", "fly", "heads up". Flip is a kind of examiner, heads-up is an easy to use walk viewer. Note the short hints in the status line. Optional switching to a lower quality during movements. Not Yet Supported ----------------- Among the not supported VRML features in the current beta are the nodes dealing with text (AsciiText, FontStyle), and texturing. A port of navigation mode "fly to" is under work. WWWAnchor is not yet supported, WWWInline only in the harmony version. A version with Mosaic CCI support will come out soon. How to Get It ------------- VRweb is available by anonymous ftp from: IICM ftp://ftp.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb and from the following mirror sites: Austria ftp://ftp.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Germany ftp://elib.zib-berlin.de/pub/InfoSystems/Hyper-G/VRweb ftp://ftp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb Italy ftp://ftp.esrin.esa.it/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Sweden ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Networked.Information.Retrieval/Hyper-G/VRweb New Zealand ftp://ftp.cs.auckland.ac.nz/pub/HMU/Hyper-G/VRweb UK ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/Hyper-G/VRweb USA ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Hyper-G/VRweb ftp://ftp.utdallas.edu/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Mailing list <-- new ------------ 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.tu-graz.ac.at with message body subscribe vrweb YourNameHere (no subject needed). To unsubscribe, mail "unsubscribe vrweb" to the same address. To send mail to all members of the list, simply compose your message or question and send it to vrweb@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at Feedback -------- Please note that VRweb is unsupported software, but feedback is very welcome. Please send bug reports, questions, etc. to vrweb-bugs@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at We read all of your mail, but cannot guarantee to respond to every single mail. July 5 1995. July 17 1995. Aug 4 1995. Michael Pichler