From: Martin Reddy <mxr@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
Subject: ONLINE: 3D Object Archive
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 21:37:41 +0100 (BST)


From: Martin Reddy <mxr@dcs.ed.ac.uk>

  [Pheww! Thank goodness that's over... another year, another progress 
  report :-)  Now  at  least  I've  got  some  time to get down to the
  *really* important things....]

This is just a brief message to remind everyone of the existence of
the UK VR-SIG 3D Object Archive, and to inform people of any
developments which have occurred recently. The site contains a number
of freely- available object files in a number of formats, and can be
accessed via the Web page at:

	http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/mxr/objects.html

(Or you can use ftp://ftp.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/objects if you prefer direct
ftp access)


VRML
====

The VRML section of the archive has expanded rapidly over the past few
weeks and now holds just under 100 models. All of these can be
accessed from the VRML Supermarket web page by simply clicking on the
relevant filename. There is now a wide selection of freely-available
VRML browsers for practically every platform you can think of -
there's even one for Linux for all of you Linux fans out there [Hi
Dave :-)]. There's a link from the VRML Supermarket page to an
extensive list of browsers which you can download to your own machine
and use to view the .wrl files.


VR-ART
======

Sean Varney has kindly contributed a number of models from the VR-Art@
facility maintained at the Design Research Centre. These have now been 
incorporated into the archive and include a number of Superscape VRT 
worlds and VRML files. Thanks Sean.


WEB PAGE
========

The Web page interface to the archive has undergone substantial re-
working. For one, I have designed a much flashier logo for the site (who
says my time isn't spent profitably!). However, more importantly, the page
has been re-organised a bit and provides better and more direct access to
the site's material. Also, the list of relevant URLs has been extended
quite a bit and subsequently categorised into a number of sub-sections
(Other Repositories, Documentation, Organisations & Software Packages). 


VRS NEWSLETTER
==============

The archive will feature in a forthcoming issue of the Virtual Reality
Society's newsletter, "Feedback". This will include a brief introduction 
to the aims of the facility and what's available.


And that's about it really.... pop by if you fancy a teapot or an X29...

Martin.


+============================================================================+
| Martin Reddy                                    Dept. of Computer Science  |
|                                                 University of Edinburgh    |
| e-mail : mxr@dcs.ed.ac.uk                       Mayfield Road, EH9 3JZ     |
| http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/mxr/               Tel : (0131) 650 5164      |
+============================================================================+