1. VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language

2. What Are We Going to See? • What is VRML? • Syntax of the language • Features • Examples

3. Credits Most of the demos Are based on demos from “Floppy's VRML Guide - VRML97 Tutorial” The demos are localy saved to increase efficiency end accessibility. The originals and many more can be found in : http://www.vapourtech.com/vrmlguide

4. A Bit Of History • In the beginning there was VRML 1.0. • It was the first attempt at an internet 3D language. • VRML 2.0 replaced VRML 1.0 and add many features (animation). • Version 2.0 was submitted to ISO for standardization, the outcome was VRML97 which is almost identical to VRML 2.0.

5. Technical Stuff - Viewing • In order to see VRML worlds, we need to install a VRML browser (or player). • Internet Explorer comes with a default VRML browser, and almost all other internet browsers can install one.

6. Technical Stuff - Editing • VRML can be edited by any text editor. • There are many available VRML editors (with context highlighting). • For more complex worlds, 3D modeling programs can be used and the result can be translated to VRML. • The basic output file format is TEXT, but the browsers can read compressed files (compressed with gzip).

7. Demo!! • This is a simple demo to demonstrate basic features of the VRML environment

8. VRML Syntax • Each VRML file must start with the comment line:

9. Basics • VRML world is made out of nodes, which are types of objects. • Inside the nodes there are fields which are properties of the node and have a Default. • A node structure is : NodeName { filedName value }

10. Nodes Cont. • Nodes can be nested:

11. Some Important Nodes • Lets look at this simple code: Node Node Fields WHAT IS THIS: Fields Node

12. Reuse of Nodes

13. Transformations: • Regular affin transformations: • Translation • Rotation • Scaling • Direction of the axes are standard • Every thing works by the right hand rule

14. Example:

15. Apperence: • Appearance node can have two fields: • material • texture

16. Materials: • The material field can have a Material node. • The material node can have these fields: • diffuseColor. • The normal color of the object. • specularColor. • The color of highlights on shiny objects.

17. Materials: • emissiveColor. • The object 'glows' with a light of its own of this color. It doesn't cast light on any other objects though. • ambientIntensity. • The amount of ambient light that the object reflects. • shininess. • How reflective the object is. • transparency. • How transparent the object is. Note, some browsers will not support partly-transparent objects.

18. Some Materials:

19. Textures: • appearance field can specify a texture. • There are several types of textures. • Image textures: defined by a jpg files. • Movie textures: defined by a mpg file. • Pixel textures: user defined textures.

20. Other Basic Shapes: • Box • Cylinder • Cone • Sphere • Text

21. Cameras & Viewpoints • We can set many viewpoints to our world. • A viewpoint is defined by : • position : [z,y,z] coordinates of the camera. • orientation : were the camera looks at ( [x,y,z] =axes + angle of rotation). • fieldOfView: angle in radians between 0 and pi. • description : name of the viewPoint. • Some VRML browsers allow specification of entrance camera in the link to the world: world.wrl#CAM1

22. Cameras Cont.

23. Background & Fog • Background of the world can be set in two ways: • Map a texture over a surrounding box. • Define a gradient of sky & ground around the center. • Fog enables creating the allusion of distance.

24. Sound

25. Sound { SFVec3f direction 0 0 1 SFFloat intensity 1 SFVec3f location 0 0 0 SFFloat maxBack 10 SFFloat maxFront 10 SFFloat minBack 1 SFFloat minFront 1 SFFloat priority 0 SFNode source NULL SFBool spatialize TRUE } Sound Node

26. Sound Node Cont. direction Min back Min Front Max Front Max back

27. AudioClip { SFString description "" SFBool loop FALSE SFFloat pitch 1.0 SFTime startTime 0 SFTime stopTime 0 MFString url [] } AudioClip Node

28. Objects of Desire • We can build objects other than the three default shapes by specifying coordinates of the vertexes. • Specify coordinates: • Specify Normals: • Specify direction:

29. General Objects

30. Setting Normals

31. Lighting • There are three kinds of lights in VRML: • Directional Light: A light with no specific location in space only a direction. (gives a sun effect). • Point Light: A light that have a specific location and shines evenly to all directions. • Spot Light: A light with a specific location that shins in a set angle to a specific direction.

32. Spot Light: Beam width Spot Light Cutoff angle Direction

33. Dynamic Worlds • We can specify to the browser what Navigation capabilities the user will have: • Walk • Examine • None

34. Events & Routes • Most nodes contain events. • If a field in a node is exposed, the node has two defined events for it: • Set_fieldName – used to set the value of the field. • fieldName_changed – generated when the value was changed. • The ‘set’ and ‘changed’ can be left out. • Not all fields are exposed.

35. Touch time Route Start time Events & Routes • A ROUTE wires two events together. Touch Node Sound Node DEF SENSOR TouchSensor { } DEF SOUND Sound { } ROUTE SENSOR.touchTime TO SOUND.startTime

36. Sensors • There are several types of sensors in VRML: • Time Sensors • Visibility sensors • Collision Sensors • Proximity Sensors • Touch Sensors • Sphere Sensors • Cylinder Sensors • Plane Sensors

37. Sensor Code Example

38. Interpolators • Used to interpolate between key values • Several kinds of interpolators: • Color • Orientation • Coordinate • Normal • Position • Scalar

39. Bounded Nodes • We can bind some nodes to values in other • Background • Fog • NavigationInfo • Viewpoint

40. Programming!? • Real animation must include some sort of programming. • VRML accepts two kinds of programs: • JAVA. • JavaScript. • The script node can receive end send events very easily.

41. Script Demo

42. JAVA • In order to use Java instead of JavsScript all we need to do is to write the appropriate class and include it in the script node: Script { url "NewScript.class" }

43. Examples

44. Bibliography • Floppy's VRML Guide - VRML97 Tutorial • WEB3D CONSORTIUM – • http://www.vrml.org/ • VRML97 Specification, ISO-IEC 14772-11997 • http://www.vrml.org/technicalinfo/specifications/vrml97/index.htm • Biota.org - Creatures Gallery – • http://www.biota.org/gallery/index.html