Editor: Peiya Liu The Virtual Reality Modeling Language Explained FRML. (pronounced “vermal’) stands for Vir ‘ual Reality Modeling Language. Technically, VEML is neither virtual reality nor a modeling language. Virtual reality generally implies an immersive 3D experience, which typically requires a head-mounted display (HMD) and 3D input devices, such as digital gloves. VRML neither requires nor imposes immersion. Furthermore, a true modeling language would contain richer geo- metric modeling primitives and mechanisms. VEML provides a bare minimum of geometric modeling features but contains numerous features unavailable in a modeling language. If VRML is not virtual reality ora modeling lan guage, what is 17 This question has several answers. At its core, VRML serves as a 3D inter: change format. It defines most of the commonly used semantics found in today’s 3D applications such as hierarchical transformations, light sources, viewpoints, geometry, animation, fog, ‘material properties, and texture mapping. One of the primary goals in designing VRML was to censure that it at least succeed as an effective 3D file interchange format, Here's a second answer to “What is VRML?" it's a 3D analog to HTML This means that VEML. serves as a simple, multiplatform language for publishing 3D Web pages. The fact that some information, including games, engineering mod- els, scientific visualizations, educational expert- ences, and architecture, can best be experienced in 3D has motivated this language. Typically. these types of projects require intensive interac tion, animation, and user participation and explo- ration beyond what a page, text, or Image-based. format can handle, ‘Another answer is that VRML provides the technology to integrate 3D, 2D, text, and multi ‘media into a coherent model. When these media types combine with scripting languages and Inter~ net capabilities, an entirely new gene of interac: ve applications becomes possible, A 3D metaphor presents a natural user experience that supports classic 2D desktop models and extends them into broader contexts of space and place. Many have speculated that a 3D world model will prevail and thus replace the popular 2D desktop ‘model as the primary user interface paradigm in the next decade, However, 3D user interface design, user education, and ubiquitous 3D graph ics performance present significant unsolved problems that must be overcome before a 3D desktop has a chanee. A fourth answer, the one most publicized and debated, claims that VRML forms the foundation for cyberspace and online virtual communities popularized by science fiction writers William Gibson in (Ace Books, New York, 1984) and Neal Stephenson in. Gan- tom Books, New York, 1992). Critics have acci rately pointed out that VRML does not yet define the networking and database protocols necessary for true multiuser simulations. However, the strat- egy behind VRML has been Evolve the standard one step at a time, 1 Keep it simple. 1 Standardize only on problems that are com- pletely understood and reasonably solved, 1 Encourage experimentation and extensions. 1 Don'treinvent technologies that can be solved outside of VRML (for example, hypertext transfer protocol, or http). Several working multiuser systems have been implemented on top of VRML, proof that the incremental approach works. The answer to "What is VRML7" is actually “Allof the above.” Most likely the answer will never simply be one-sided, However, afew misconcep- tions or “wrong” answers exist, For example, \VRML is not a programming library for applica- tion developers. Since VRML builds on the Open. Inventor file format, many people assume that it also provides the rch programming interfaces and tools included in the Open Inventor toolkit. In actuality, VRML is an extended subset of Open. Inventor's file format and does not define an application programmer interface (APD. The fact ‘that VRML includes scripting language integration tends to promote this misconception—scripting language capabilities are mainly intended for authors who need more power or integration, Overview Here I'll give a brief overview, describing the ‘major architectural aspects of VRML. See the VRML. standard (http://www-vrml.org/Specifications/ ‘VRML97) or (Addison-Wesley Developers Press, Reading, Massachusetts, 1997, http:/Anww.wasabisoft.com: Book) for more detail. ‘Scene graph VRML files describe 3D objects and worlds using a hierarchical Entities in the scene graph are called. VRML defines 54 dif {ferent node types. including geometry primitives, appearance properties, multimedia objects, ani ‘mation interpolators, interaction sensors, and var- {ous types of grouping nodes. Nodes store their datain_. VRML defines 20 different types of fields that can store everything from a single num- ber (the "SFloat” field type, where “SF” stands for single-valued field) (o an array of 3D rotations (the ‘MFRotation” field type, where “MF” stands for ‘multiple-valued field). ‘The VRML scene graph is a Nodes can contain other nodes (some types of nodes may have “children”) and may be con- tained by more than one node (they may have ‘more than one “parent"). However, a node must not contain itself, This scene graph structure ‘makes it easy to create large worlds or complicat- ed objects from subparts, Figure 1 illustrates a very slmple scene graph of ‘one node (see Figure 2 fora screen shot of Figure 1 ina VRML browser). ‘The first line in all VRML files is the header, #VRML V2.0 utf8. The second statement in this example defines the root node, Shape, which. specifies two elds: and The geometry field defines (or references) one of the nine geometry shape ( nodes in the VRML speeifieation—in this case, a Sphere. The appearance field always defines (or references) > an Appearance node; > this was designed in > cease we add new types of appearance nodes later. The appearance node specifies several appearance properties that can be applied to the geometry node; in this case, a simple red materi al, Note that in VRML parlance, Sphere, Appear ance, and Material aren't considered Shape's children, but they're contained by Shape. Grouping VRML features eight grouping nodes. These nodes define a local coordinate system for their children nodes. They create hierarchical seenes and support specialized grouping behaviors. Anchor defines its descendants as a hyperlink to a uniform resource locator (URL). Billboard auto- ‘matically rotates its descendants to face the viewer. Collision specifies collision-detection properties for its decedents, Group, a generic grouping node, simply clusters other nodes into a coordinate sys- tem, Inline specifies its children through a URL, enabling distributed, hierarchical file structures ava. v2.0 utea geometry Sphere { radius 3.0 ) rance Appearance ( cerial Material ( B661 soquiordos-Kinr EyWvRML v2.0 utes Group ( children [ ‘Transform ( translation 4.00 4 # tet chile trang +4 in x children shape ¢ geonetry sphere ( radius 3.0 ) appearance Appearance ( material Material ( aiffusecoler 10 0 rea yy ‘transform ( # 2nd chia rotation .707 .707 0.785 # rotate translation -3 00 # trang -3 in x children shape ( geonetry Box ( size 535) appearance Appt ance ( material Material < diffusecoler 0 0 1 ‘ >» blue 1 # end children ) # end Group LOD defines multiple versions of an object for automatic level-of-detail switching by the brows: cr. This reduces the complexity of distant objects. Switch selects one of its children as “active.” Trans form, probably the most commonly used group. {ng node, specifies transformations to apply to the Group ae Transform Transform Shape Shape children (such as rotate, translate, and scale) Figure 3 illustrates a simple use of grouping nodes to create a hierarchical scene, The root node, Group, contains two children, both Transform nodes. The first child defines a red sphere (from the first example). The second child defines a blue box. ‘The red sphere's Transform node parent translates it units in the direction, The blue box rotates about an axis (0.707, 0.707. 0) by 0.785 radians and twanslates ~3 units in the direction, See Figure 4 for the results of reading Figure 3 into a VRML browser and Figure 5 for a diagram of Figure 3's scone graph. Again, note that the geometry and. property nodes technically do not lie in the scene graph, but are contained inside the Shape nodes. Geometry Geometry nodes create the visual presentation in VRML. VRML features 10 types of geometry nodes: Box, Cone, Cylinder, ElevationGrid, Extru: sion, IndexedFaceSet, IndexedLineSet, PointSe, Sphere, and Text. Event processing \VRML 97 defines an event or message-passing mechanism by which nodes in the scene graph can communicate with each other. Each node {ype defines the names and types of events that it generates or receives, ROUTE statements define event paths between event generators and receivers. Routing creates reactive behaviors by "using sensor nodes or scripts to initiate changes in the scene graph. Figure 6 illustrates a simple example of event routing. Here TimeSensor (clock) animates the color of the red sphere from Figure 1 and routes it to Colorlnterpolator and then to the diffuseColor field, Notice the use of the Dz node-naming syntax (“DEF TS TimeSen- sor (..°) that defines node names and is subse quently used by the ROUTE syntax to wire events, Sensors Nine sensor nodes provide the built-in user Interaction primitives for VRML. Sensor nodes combine with other nodes via ROUZE stalements tovem v2.0 utes Shape ( geonetry Sphere ( radius 3) appearance Appearance ( material DEF M Material ( 4iffusecoler 100) y > DEP CI Colorinterpolater ( key [0.2.4.6 81] # keyframe timing keyvalue (100, 010,001,110, 101, 1003 # colors > DEP TS TimeSensor < Loop TRUE eyclernterval 5 > ROUTE 7S. fraction_changed 70 CI.set_fraction ROUTE CI.value_changed 70 M.set_diffusecolor 415 second loop cycle visibly affect a scene. Sensors have two categories: environmental and pointing devices, The four environmental sensors—Collision, ProximitySen- sor, TimeSensor, and VisibilitySensor—detect changes in the world. Collision sets the coliston- detection state and detects collision events between, ‘the user's avatar and geometry in the scene. Prox imitySensor detects when the user's avatar navi- gates in and out of a user-defined region and tracks user's position while in the region. VisibilitySen- sor detects the rendering visibility status of specific geometry in a scene, TimeSensor generates events as time passes and serves as the basis for all ani- mated behaviors. See Figure 6 for a simple use of TimeSensor. Figure 7 illustrates a simple use of ProximitySensor. In this example, ProximitySensor detects when the user approaches the box and issues a sound alert, Notice that Collision was need- fed to disable collision detection on the “force eld.” Figure 8 shows a screen shot of Figure 7 ‘There are five pointing device sensors: Anchor, CylinderSensor, PlaneSensor, SphereSensor, and TouchSensor. These device sensors detect and react to user manipulation of a pointing device activated over any geometry that descended from. the pointing-device sensor's parent node. Typi- cally, the sensor implements user interface wid- gets on sibling objects. Clicking on geometry HvaML v2.0 utes DEF PS ProximitySensor ( size 20 10 20 ) collision ¢ collide FALSE # need to turn collisions off for the box children shape ( jonetry Box ( size 20 10 20 ) appearance Appearance ( material Material ( transparency 0.75 4 semi-transparent force field aigeusecolor 110 »» Shape ( geonetry Sphere ( radius 2 ) appearance Appearance ( material Material ( diffusecolor 10 1 ) » Sound ( source DEF ALARM AudiClip (url “alarn.wav" ) spatialize FALSE minPront 20 minBack 20 maxPront 20 maxBack 20 > Viewpoint ( position 00 30) ROUTE PS.enterTime 70 ALARM. a ROUTE PS.exitTime TO ALARM £222 5,8 Brom Sine sets 37IEEE MultiMedia WvRM v2.0 utes Group ( chiléren DEF TOS TouchSensor ( ) # Uses sphere below to activate SW Switch ( whichchoice 0 choice [ Shape ( # button off geometry DEF SPH Sphere ( ) ‘appearance Appearance ( material » Shape ( Material ( diffusecolor .3 .2 0) # button on geometry USE SPH appearance App. naterial rrance ( Material ( Aiffusecolor .3 10) » moggle script ( eventin SPPine touch eventout S¥int32 which_changed url "Javascript: function initialize( } ( which changed o> function touch(value, time) ( which changed = which changed; // Toggle ‘button value Pa > 1) ROUTE TOS.touchTime TO Toggie.touch # Fire the script on click ROUTE Toggle.which changed TO SW. jet_whichChoice # Toggles the button influenced by Anchor (inherited from VRML. 1.0) causes the browser to load a new URL or view in. the existing URL. CylinderSensor, PlaneSensor, and SphereSensor define invisible geometry, rep- resenting a movable widget’s shape and con- strained behavior. CylinderSensor can be used to create dials, PlaneSensors to create 1D or 2D slid ers or constraints, and SphereSensors to create trackballs. TouchSensor, a generic pointing-dlevice sensor that detects pointing-device motion and activation over geometry, can be used for many applications. Scripting Scripts let the world creator define arbitrary behaviors. Script nodes can be inserted between, ent generators (typically sensor nodes) and event receivers, The VRML 97 specification defines Script node bindings for the Java and ECMAScript {also known as JavaScript programming lan ‘guages). Figure 9 illustrates a simple case of using Script to ereate a toggle button. See the section on Prototypes for how to package this button into a reusable object. Animation interpolators Interpolator nodes—bullt-in Scripts that per form simple anim? ‘with a TimeSensor and some node in the scene _graph to make objects move or change. There are six lypes of interpolator nodes: Colorinterpola tor, Coordinatelnterpolator, Normallnterpolator, OrientationInterpolator, PositionInterpolator, and ScalarInterpolator. See Figure 6 for a simple case of using Colorinterpolator to animate an object's color. jon caleulations—combine Prototypes: encapsulation and reuse \VRML 97 includes a prototyping mechanism for encapsulating and reusing a scene graph (the PROTO statement). Geometry, properties, and ani. mations or behaviors can be encapsulated, either separately or together. Prototyping permits defin. ing a new node type in terms of a combination of existing node types, This makes VRML easier to ‘use and reduces the size of VRML files. Figure 10 creates a prototype toggle button out of Figure 8 and uses it to create a simple combination lock composed of two buttons. Distributed scenes \VRML 97 includes two primitives that let asin {gle VRML world definition span the World Wide Web. The Inline node allows the inclusion of another VRML file stored anywhere on the Web. ‘The EXTERNPROTO statement permits fetching new PROTO definitions (that is, new node types) from anywhere on the Web. More generally, EXTERNPROTO lets nodes be defined external to the VRML file. In addition, it serves as the basic extensibility mechanism for VRML Figure 11 illustrates how to create an external prototype that refers to the prototype defined in Figure 10, The exreRwpRoTO0 statement simply refers to the fictional URL http://www.foo.com/ Button.wrl, which contains the PROTO statement in Figure 10 Relationships to major standards VEML fits into the existing infrastructure of the Internet and Web, It uses existing standards‘WVRME V2.0 utes PROTO Button [ field sFNode geon Sphere { ) ‘eventout SFint32 state_changed ‘ # This defines the PROTO, but does not instance anything Group { children [ DEF 70S Touchsensor ( ) DEF SW Switeh ( whichchoice 0 choice [ Shape ( # off geometry IS geon # appearance > Shape ( # on. geonetry IS geon # This script creat 4 Buttoni-0FF & Button’ DEF TwoButtons Script ( field seint32 bi 0 field sPrnt32 b2 feventIn sFint32 eventin sFint32 feventout SPrine startTine url “Javascript: function set_bi(value, tine) ( bi = value; LE ((bL == 0) && (b2 == 1)) startTime = tine; > function set_b2(value, time) ( ba = value; Af (bi == 0) ke (b2 = startTime = time; a simple combo ieck. <0N triggers the lock. » # appearance ...sane as in Figure 9 > » DEF Toggle Script ¢ # ..-same as in Figure 9... > Dd ROUTE TOS.touchTime TO Toggle.touch ROUTE Toggle.which changed TO SW. set waiehchoice > # tow create two Buttons Transform { translation -2 00 children DEF Bi Button ( geom Box () } RouzE > ‘Transform ( translation 20 0 > DEF 7 Transform ( children [ Shape ( geonetry Sphere ( radius 0.01) } # Initially tiny DEP SI Positioninterpolater ( # Explosion effect Key [ 0.0 0.999 1.0] KeyValue [ 0.01 0.01 0.01, 1000.0 1000.0 1000.0 0.01 0.01 0.01} > DEF TS Timesensor ( ) » ROUTE ROUTE TwoButtons.startTime TO 7S. startTine ROUTE TS. fraction_changed TO ST.set_fraction ROUTE SI.value_changed 10 7.scale children DRP B2 Button ( geom Cone ¢ ) } > wherever possible, even if those standards have some shortcomings when used with VRML. Using. existing standards instead of inventing new, incompatible standards makes it much easier for Web developers to use their existing tools to cre- ate VRML content, It also makes it easier for somebody implementing the VRML standard, since libraries of code for popular standards already exist ‘VRML files may contain references to files in many other standard formats. JPEG, PNG, GIF, and MPEG files may be used as texture maps on. ‘objects. WAV and MIDI files may specify sound in. vaML v2.0 utes EXTERNPROTO Button [ Sela sPiode geon ‘eventout sPInt32 state_changed } *nttp: //www. foo. com/Button. wri” Button ( geom Box ( ) } # Instances a Button the world. Files containing Java or ECMAScript (formerly JavaScript) code may be referenced and used to implement programmed behavior for VRML objects. Each of these indepeiSecu a IEEE MultiMedia ii dards were chosen to integrate with VRML because ofits widespread use on the Internet. The ‘VRML 7 specification describes how they're used with VRML—it does not attempt to define these other standards or describe how to create files in these other file formats ‘The definition of how VRML should be used with other standards is generally done by the orga- nizations that define those standards, For example, ‘the World Wide Web Consortium (WSC) is stan- ddardizing an