From: Bob Crispen Subject: Re: MISC: virtual places Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 21:46:34 -0500 Organization: http://hiwaay.net/~crispen/ Julieta Maria wrote: > Hello... I'm new in this list, I want to say hello and ask a question. > I'm planning an aplication to be distributed on CD ROM. It is about the > university I work at. I was thinking of showing part of the university as > a virtual world, where you can choose where to go.. <...> > What kind of extra software would I need? Any advises or recommendations? > Is there any not so complicated solution for this? I wouldnt like to work > with a web browser... Well, right up to the last sentence I had an answer for you. You know, web browsers are pretty standard items on computers these days, and most proprietary 3D viewer programs have to be installed, so you'd be limiting your audience pretty severely if you don't have a web browser front end. There's a bunch of folks who have built models of cities and campuses with VRML. VRML is soon to be an ISO standard; a VRML plugin will come in the standard installation of Netscape and IE (so that significant numbers of people in your intended audience won't have to do anything but point to the VRML world and click); and VRML is considerably more compact than a lot of other formats (though to be fair, it's possible to make some huge models that take forever to load and render if you aren't careful -- one guy at work had a 45 MB file the other day, which I think is a record -- but even the most elaborate VRML file will normally be considerably smaller than the average Word document). Another thing: VRML is completely platform-independent. There are VRML browsers for PCs, Unix boxes and now even Macs. If you pick a proprietary format instead, you're completely at the mercy of the owner of the format as to what platforms he wants to support (and therefore what platforms your audience has to have to view your work). Presumably one could even eventually find a VRML browser for the Radio Shack Color Computer (distributed on 9000 5.25" floppies ;-) VRML modelers vary in price. Some are expensive, some are free. And virtually every CAD and 3D program exports to VRML. I've got a few pointers to VRML worlds at http://hiwaay.net/~crispen/vrml/worlds.html and there's plenty of sites listed that do architectural things. You can also make parts of your model active. I'm not sure if you necessarily want things to move, but you can click on, say, a model of the library and bring up a document about the library, or you could have it display "Library" on the bottom line of your browser when you mouse over the library. That kind of thing is very simple to do. It isn't much harder to take your visitors on a ride around the campus in a little virtual car, stopping at the points of interest. Oh yeah. VRML files are plain text files (a binary format is in the works, but it'll be a while -- you can gzip VRML files now), so if you're inclined to play around with the fine points, you aren't tied down to what the modeler will let you do. I know a bit about VRML, so it seems like a logical choice to me. Please forgive my enthusiasm -- I honestly don't get a penny out of this. VRML isn't VR, at least in the sense that "VR" is used in this newsgroup, but it's darn close, and in comparison with a real VR system, it's amazingly cheap. -- Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen crispen@hiwaay.net Don't buy from spammers; buy from their competition.