VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) was based on the Silicon Graphics Open Inventor file format, which was designed as a portable, cross-platform file format. It is extensible, interpreted language and it has become an industry-standard scene description language. It is used for 3D scenes, or worlds, on the Internet.

VRML was first expressed at the First International Conference of the World Wide Web. It was defined to be able to:

· Be platform independent
· Place objects in 3-D space
· Include attributes such as shape, colour, and size

VRML 1.0 was introduced in May 1995, followed by VRML 1.0c in January 1996. VRML 2, now called Moving Worlds or Web 3D, is the current format. VRML 1.0 provided static worlds, with no interaction and developers were unable to modify shapes. VRML 2.0 is more interactive and provides more realistic scenes. It has JAVA and JavaScript support and can include sound and animation. It is viewed as a new language. VRML 1 and 2 are not compatible.

What you need.

The exercises in this tutorial use any simple text editors to write VRML code. This is similar to writing HTML code and the fact that any text editor can be used makes producing 3D graphics for distribution on the Web a fairly straightforward exercise. The files need to be saved as .wrl.

A good program to use to assist with typing the code is VRMLpad. A trail shareware version can be downloaded from www.vrmlpad-v-2-0.net-software-download.com.

To produce 3D content the best way to approach the difference between producing 2D content is that you need to consider a ‘viewpoint’. That is, you need to not only define/draw the 2D components of the image to be displayed, but also specify from where the images will be viewed. Once this is defined the drawing package renders the 3D image onto the screen. By using the computer’s fast processing speeds, and specifying multiple, sequential viewpoints ‘walkthroughs’ or ‘flythroughs’ can be produced.

VRML code defines objects as frameworks that are rendered. This makes file sizes very small. The appearance of rendered surfaces can also be modified using different textures.