VRweb 1.5

Interactive 3D Virtual Reality Scene Viewer

Authors

Keith Andrews (kandrews@iicm.edu): VRweb project leader

Michael Pichler (mpichler@iicm.edu): VRweb lead programmer

Contributed by

Meredith Whyles (mwhyles@merlyn.net)

For more information, visit http://www.merlyn.net/.

SCO "Skunkmom" Sponsor

Ron Record (rr@sco.com)

Obtained from

ftp://ftp.iicm.edu/pub/VRweb

Restrictions

Refer to the COPYRIGHT and LICENCE files.

Description

VRweb is a freely available browser for 3D worlds and scenes modeled in VRML (the Virtual Reality Modeling Language). It was developed by the Institute for Information Processing and Computer Supported New Media (IICM) of Graz University of Technology, Austria. For information about the IICM, visit http://www.iicm.edu/. VRweb is the only free VRML browser available in full source code which does not require commercial packages such as Inventor or Motif and which will run on (almost) any Unix or Windows platform.

Productivity

This program displays VRML 1.0 files for the user to manipulate. When used with a web browser, such as Netscape or Mosaic, this 3D viewer allows access to the increasing number of web sites offering virtual reality content and to the advanced HyperWave servers (formerly known as "Hyper-G"). HyperWave servers represent the next generation web solution for publishing rich hypermedia documents in the Internet's World Wide Web and internal TCP/IP networks. For more information about HyperWave, visit http://www.hyperwave.de.

Work Planned

None

Documentation

To view the VRweb User Guide, visit http://www.iicm.edu/vrweb/help.

Verification

Run "vrweb-mesa filename &", where filename is any VRML 1.0 file. If VRwave (the Java successor to VRweb) is available, it will be invoked to view VRML 2.0 files. Both VRML 1.0 and VRML 2.0 files have a file suffix of ".wrl". VRwave can be obtained from SCO Skunkware. For more information on VRwave, visit http://www.iicm.edu/vrwave.

How to get the source

Visit http://www.sco.com/skunkware/src/x11/viewers or ftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware/src/x11/viewers to obtain a copy of the source in gzip format. To create the executable from the source code (on SCO OpenServer 5.0.4), follow these steps:

• Install the SCO OpenServer Development System (for the X window "imake" facility). I used version 5.1.0Ac.
• Install the Perl scripting language and the GNU Development System (for the C++ compiler). Both are available from SCO Skunkware. I used GNU 95.4c and Perl 5.003.
• Use csh (not ksh).
• Ensure that the execution search path includes the directory containing the GNU C/C++ compilers (e.g., "/usr/progressive/bin" for the Skunkware version) BEFORE any other compiler directories (e.g., "/usr/bin/" for the SCO Development System compilers).
• Execute the command: "setenv CPU SCO".
• See file INSTALLATION for an installation guide.
• The unbuilt source directory hierarchy requires about 18 Meg, and the built hierarchy requires about 50 Meg of disk space. The unstripped binary is under 5 Meg.