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The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (shortened in vrml ) or Virtual Reality Makeup Language is a language of description of virtual universes in 3 dimensions. This interpreted language is an international standard ISO and files vrml usually have as an extension .wrl.

In fact, it is strictly speaking a language of presentation and not of programming, since as for the language HTML for example, file vrml generally does not contain a succession of instructions but rather information making it possible to the visionnor to then post the elements (forms, sensors, lights, etc).

Presented at the time of the World Wide Web Conference of 1994, vrml is not the work of a single programmer, but rather the result of the collaboration of several professionals of the 3D, including inter alia Mark Pesce, Tony Parisi, Gavin Bell (Silicon Graphics) and Paul Strauss (Silicon Graphics).

The original intention of this language is to allow the representation of interactive universes 3D virtual. The files .wrl are textual files describing the virtual scenes using language vrml. The files .wrl, which can be stored locally on a computer or downloaded since a Web server, are visualized using a visionnor, who is a plugiciel added to the fretterer Web or an autonomous software independent of the fretterer Web, who is installed on the computer of the user.

Programs vrml can describe simple forms (points, lines, polygons) or complexes (spheres, cubes, cones, cylinders…), of the text, the images, animations, lightings, the sounds, the hyperlinks, like their fitting in space, their texture, their color, their material…

Example of description of form in language vrml

#VRML V2.0 utf8 Shape { appearance Appearance { material Material { diffuseColor .8 0 .2 shininess .7 } } geometry Cylinder { radius 1 height 8 side FALSE signal TRUE bottom FALSE } }

Once the program interpreted by the visionnor, the virtual world is posted with the screen, in 3D; the camera (i.e. the point of view) positions at the place envisaged of the scene, and the user is then free to move in this world (generally using the keyboard or of the mouse) and to interact with the various objects present. " sensors" of proximity allow to launch an action at the time of the passage near an object, the " sensors" of touched allow to start, for example, with one clicks on the object the opening of another virtual world…

In 1996, a new grinding of the language was presented: Vrml 2.0 (renamed thereafter VRML97). Among the improvements compared to version 1.0, one can quote:

  • animation of the objects: the worlds created are not condemned any more to remain static
  • interaction with the objects: each object of the world can react to signals, these signals being able to be generated by the user (keyboard, mouse…) or by other objects of the same world.
  • creation of Script S of animation (in Javascript/Ecmascript) included with the files .wrl
  • management of the sounds in 3D
  • extrusions of objects
  • effects of fog
  • use of a video sequence as a texture of an object
  • creation of prototypes of objects

In complement of basic information concerning the various objects of the scene 3D, the vrml v2 has a true internal computer programming language called VrmlScript, whose syntax is similar to the Javascript. It in particular makes it possible to handle the objects (nodes) of scene vrml (of SFNode type), or other types of data specific to the vrml like SFTime, SFColor, or SFRotation. A script written in VrmlScript is carried out inside an object (or node) of type Script {}, like this:

#VRML V2.0 utf8 Script { field SFInt32 unNombre 123456 field SVec3f unVector 1 3 2 URL " vrmlscript: function maFonction () { print (“Hello world! ”); print ('Here a vector: '+unVector); } " }

This language open and accessible to all, is well documented on the Web and is often used for:

  • to represent digitized real objects.
  • to create video games 2D/3D.
  • to represent objects in technical documentations (NASA for example had published a file vrml which made it possible to observe the module Mars Pathfinder in its least details)
  • of Internet sites of meeting and discussion, where each visitor chooses a misadventure to represent it, before venturing in the virtual world with the meeting of the misadventures of the other visitors.
  • of simulations of interiors (for the study of the fitting and the lighting of the parts)
  • of the statistical graphs in 3D (cartography, histograms 3D…)

Visionnor vrml (for the visualization of files vrml)

  • Démotride

See too

External bonds

  • vrml Plugin and Browser Detector
  • Web3D Consortium
  • Specifications of the format
  • Web-3D: an explanatory site with many tutoriaux
  • Directory of the virtual worlds and cats 3D: options individual-use-mode/multi-use-mode with images and direct links towards ~1000 worlds

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