VRweb 1.1.2e ============ VRweb is a browser for 3D worlds and scenes modeled in the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). VRweb is a joint project between IICM, home of Hyper-G, NCSA, home of Mosaic, and the University of Minnesota, home of Gopher. New since 1.1: o Collision Detection (you'll no longer fly through walls) o new Mesa driver (rel. 1.2.6): *faster*, improved texture mapping, gamma correction, less Z buffer memory demand o remote call interface (successive scenes into same window) o support for Spaceball o bugfixes Release 1.1.2e was made outside the planned release cycle to take advantage of the latest Mesa version and all bugfixes made in the meanwhile. Currently, work is going on for network support (WWWInline and textures). New in 1.1.2e: o use of Mesa 1.2.7: textured primitives, bug fixes (byte order, fast gamma correction) o italian user interface (thanks to ) o bugfixes (fixed numerical problems in collision detection, security issues on netscape remote call etc.) UNIX users upgrading from an earlier version need to change the VRweb commandline in ~/.mailcap to make use of remote calls. See install.html in the on-line help. The current Windows release 1.1 Beta 5 is based on the same version. More information can be found at the VRweb technical home page: http://hyperg.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/vrweb Supported Platforms ------------------- UNIX: o SGI: OpenGL and Mesa o DEC ALPHA: OpenGL and Mesa o DEC Ultrix: Mesa o SUN Solaris: Mesa o SUN OS: Mesa o HPUX: Mesa o LINUX: Mesa o IBM AIX: Mesa Windows: o Windows NT: OpenGL o Windows 3.x (win32s): Mesa o Windows 95: OpenGL and Mesa The Mesa library (by brianp@ssec.wisc.edu) is an OpenGL workalike that supports 3D graphics through standard windows calls (X11 or Microsoft Windows). It neither needs nor benefits from HW accelerators. OpenGL needs a working GLX extension for your X-server, and is part of the Windows NT operating system, and free available for Windows 95. Source Code ----------- VRweb source code is availabe for both UNIX/X11 and Windows. UNIX/vrweb.src-1.1.2e.tar.gz contains the source code for UNIX/X11. Look at COPYRIGHT for usage conditions, and INSTALLATION for an installation guide. The source for the Windows is available in Windows/vrw_src.zip, including Makefiles for Microsoft Visual C++ 2.x. Read file readme.src as installation guide. Features -------- VRweb supports most of VRML 1.0 using a parser based on QvLib 1.0. Some non-standard VRML extensions (Inventor) are also handled (e.g. LightModel), others are reported and ignored. Supported features include: Grouping, Separators, Coordinates, Normals, Materials, Cameras, Light sources, Transformations, primitive shapes, IndexedFaceSet, IndexedLineSet, PointSet, MaterialBinding, ShapeHints (except concave faces), LOD (level of detail), and Texturing (limited to in-file texture images). WWWAnchor support with Netscape, Mosaic and Harmony under UNIX (since release 1.1). Several navigation modes: "Flip", "Walk", "Fly", "Heads-Up", "Fly To". Flip is a kind of examiner, Heads-Up is an easy to use walk viewer. Note the short hints in the status line. Fly To is used for controlled approach to a selectable point of interest (available since Release 1.1). See the explanations in the on-line help (available since Release 1.1). Optional switching to a lower display quality during motion. Collision detection (Rel. 1.1.2). Not Yet Supported ----------------- Among VRML features not supported in the current release are nodes dealing with text (AsciiText, FontStyle). WWWInline is supported only in the Harmony version, and is currently worked on for the UNIX/WWW version along with texture mapping. Support for WWWAnchor under Windows is our next priority. How to Get It ------------- VRweb is available by anonymous ftp from: IICM ftp://ftp.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb and from the following mirror sites: Australia ftp://ftp.cinemedia.com.au/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb ftp://gatekeeper.digital.com.au/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Austria ftp://ftp.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Czech Rep. ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/Net/Infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb (also via http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/ftp/Net/Infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb) Germany ftp://elib.zib-berlin.de/pub/InfoSystems/Hyper-G/VRweb ftp://ftp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb Italy ftp://ftp.esrin.esa.it/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Poland ftp://sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Portugal ftp://ftp.ua.pt/pub/infosystems/www/Hyper-G/VRweb (also via http://ftp.ua.pt/infosystems/www/Hyper-G/VRweb) Spain ftp://ftp.etsimo.uniovi.es/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Sweden ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Networked.Information.Retrieval/Hyper-G/VRweb UK ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/Hyper-G/VRweb USA ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Hyper-G/VRweb ftp://mirror1.utdallas.edu/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb Mailing list ------------ A mailing list for VRweb is available, where you can send questions and get feedback from the developers and other VRweb users. To subscribe, send mail to listproc@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at with message body subscribe vrweb YourNameHere (no subject needed). To unsubscribe, mail "unsubscribe vrweb" to the same address. To send mail to all members of the list, simply compose your message or question and send it to vrweb@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at Feedback -------- Please note that VRweb is unsupported software, but feedback is very welcome. Please send bug reports to vrweb-bugs@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at including the platform and version of VRweb you are using. Send other comments, suggestions, questions about distribution and licensing, etc. to vrweb-info@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at We do read all of the mail we receive, but unfortunately cannot respond to every piece of mail individually. Please bear with us... last updated: Mar 19, 1996 Michael Pichler, Keith Andrews .