VRML demo
The three-dimensional web was an early dream for many of us, but it never came off. Now it seems that a lot of work behind the scenes may result in VRML/X3D finally realising its early promise.
VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) is the technology of the future - and it sometimes seems it will always remain so. Almost a decade ago, futurist views of the Internet saw it evolving into 'cyberspace' (a term that has been widely misused, and now seems just a tad quaint) - an all-absorbing interactive three-dimensional world.So what went wrong? Part of the answer lies in the (largely sensible) conservatism of millions of internet users - for many people net browsing skills have been hard-won, so resistance to altering the existing paradigms and standards is considerable. But the troubled development of VRML - the language that would provide the backbone of the 3D web - is also much to blame.
It is worth drawing a contrast with HTML, the current backbone of the 2D web. Put simply, whatever the differences between the different graphic-enabled web browsers that are in use - Explorer, Netscape, Opera - they are really trivial (though annoying to us web developers). The most important point of convergence is the acceptance of a constant browser interface - you can expect a Back button, bookmarks/favourites, scrollbars etc etc. From a developer's point of view, you can rely on a constant set of HTML elements that will work in just about any browser.
Although the situation is getting better, VRML has still not settled down in this way. In fact, in the mid-1990s, just when the commercial web was taking off, it was undergoing an important transition from VRML 1.0 to 2.0 (or VRML 97, which is almost the same thing). Not only does VRML 2.0 not work with a VRML 1.0 browser, but the opposite is usually the case too. We encountered this problem big-time when developing VRML for the Election 97 site, which was unfortunately launched just at a point of transition.
And it gets worse - different VRML browsers (or viewers, as they are usually known) are not only selective in their interpretation of the language, but they offer quite different interpretations of the 3D environment. Some assume that the user is playing a computer game (a flight simulator, for example), while others behave as though the user is gently wandering around a room. Our demo is aimed at not having the user move at all - the metaphor is that they are holding a three-D model which they can rotate and examine from all sides.
The purist will now point out that for most viewers, these assumptions can be overridden by the developer or the user - however it has to be said that most users do not change 'ordinary' browsers from the 'factory settings' and will not do so for VRML, while developers do not have enough time on their hands to cater for all the weird and wonderful interfaces out there.
But the US Cavalry is on the way - the Web 3D Consortium is wrangling a new standard that will absorb VRML 2.0 into a new all-embracing 3D language - X3D. By 2010, we may see that large portions of the web have migrated to a new visual metaphor.
We are interested in quite humble uses of this technology, as you can see from our demo. Used properly, VRML is a powerful way of representing data. In the demo, we have added a third dimension to the political map of the UK (an out-of-date one - we have converted a page from the old election site to VRML 2.0). The 3D model resulting is not the result of using any design package - it was generated from a constituency database using offline programming methods. It is also possible to apply the server-side tools we use to generate dynamic HTML to produce 3D representations in real time.
Finally, you will not be able to view the demo unless you have a VRML viewer installed. It will work with Microsoft's, which usually comes with Internet Explorer, but we recommend Cosmo Player, which is by far a better browser and which gives the impression of a table-top model much more clearly. We do not recommend using Cortona which, though it renders graphics beautifully, steadfastly refuses to display text in any way.
