VRweb installation

VRweb

Jump to: Downloading, Browser Configuration, VRML 2.0, Server Configuration, installation of on-line Help, font files.

Downloading

If you are reading this file, you have successfully downloaded and unpacked the help archive: help.tar.gz. If you don't know where these files came from and you want to install the latest help files, follow the instructions of the README-Unix file.

To use VRweb with WWW browsers (Netscape, Mosaic) or to view local VRML files, you need one of the files vrweb-1.5xx-... For use with Harmony you need harscened-...

On displays with OpenGL support (e.g. SGI, DEC Alpha with Open3D installed) use the OpenGL version vrweb-1.5xx-ogl-[Systemname], otherwise vrweb-1.5xx-mesa-[Systemname].

The UNIX binaries are compressed with gzip. Run gunzip on the appropriate version of vrweb and you will have an executable. If you need to compile the source code yourself follow the instructions in the README-Unix and INSTALLATION file provided with the distribution.

So, if you want to use vrweb-XXX-YYY, call

gunzip vrweb-XXX-YYY.gz

You may wish to rename the binary to vrweb-ogl or vrweb-mesa respectively to have a more convenient name and to make your configurations independent of the release number.

You are now ready to start VRweb with a local file: If you have downloaded the VRMLsamples and unpacked them with

gzip -cd VRMLsamples.tar.gz | tar xvf -

try vrweb-mesa cubes.wrl or any other VRML scene. VRweb can read gzipped files as well without having to first uncompress them.

Browser Configuration

To make your web browser display VRML scenes coming from the net with VRweb, add the following line to .mailcap in your home directory:

If you do not already have a ~/.mailcap create a new one. Of course, use vrweb-ogl on SGI systems. If you use VRweb with Harmony (harscened), you do not need to make these setups. The new, official mime type for VRML is model/vrml but most servers still use x-world/x-vrml; it is best to set up both.

The argument -URL '%u' is necessary to follow relative URLs in scenes (moreover a viewpoint can be addressed with a #camera suffix), %s stands for a temporary file name containing the data. Argument -mosaic will invoke NCSA Mosaic for WWWAnchor support and on-line help, otherwise VRweb communicates with Netscape.

The -remote argument causes a single instance of VRweb getting successively opened scenes (although you have the chance to "hold" a window later on). If you prefer a new window for each scene omit -remote in the commandline. Do not put other options between -remote and %s.

If you want to make the change on the fly (without quitting your browser), you have to reload the config-file. In NCSA Mosaic: Options/Reload Config Files, in Netscape 1.x: Options|Preferences|Helper Apps, in Netscape 2.x: Options|General|Helpers.

Note to sys-admins: you can also make the changes to the global configuration file listed in the dialog, so that they are valid for all users.

You may also wish to configure your browser to pass .wrl files opened on your local file system to VRweb. This needs an entry in ~/.mime.types in the same way the server needs to be configured (see below). Note that netscape insists this file to start with the header line
#--Netscape Communications Corporation MIME Information
If you have the access rights you can do this also in file /usr/local/lib/netscape/mime.types.

You are now ready to download VRML scenes from any server: Try connecting to the IICM server for some sample scenes.

If you do not want to configure your webserver for hosting VRML files right now, you should continue setup for accessing the on-line help directly from VRweb. You need a similar step to view fonts (AsciiText nodes) in VRML scenes.

VRML 2.0

VRweb has no support for rendering VRML 2.0 scenes itself, however it recognizes VRML 2.0 files and passes them to a configurable application. This is especially important because VRML 1.0 and 2.0 files are served with the same mime type.

By default this application is VRwave, the VRML 2.0 successor of VRweb, implemented largely in Java. Set Xattribute VRML2_command to use a different one.

Server Configuration

To configure your webserver to host VRML files - also gzipped ones -, please look into the VRweb FAQ and the documentation of your server for the necessary steps. It will look like the following:

Note: The new, official mime type for VRML is model/vrml but most users still have their browsers configured for x-world/x-vrml, so you should use it still for a while.

You are now able to put VRML scenes on your server, which can be viewed by all clients with a VRML browser. Try to keep file sizes low and compress worlds of more than toy-size with gzip.

Further information on mailcap/mime types can be found in the NCSA XMosaic documentation.

Remember: mimetypes are document type definitions (e.g. according to filename extensions), whereas mailcap entries are helper app definitions (according to mimetypes).

The server is responsible to set the mimetype (x-world/x-vrml for VRML scenes), and users may choose the browser in their mailcap file.

on-line Help, font files

To be able to access this help on-line from VRweb, it must normally be found in directory ~/.vrweb/help. If you (or your sys-admin) installed it in another directory (e.g. /usr/local/vrweb/help) you should create a directory .vrweb in your homedir, cd into it, and create a link with ln -s /usr/local/vrweb/help help, to share the help.

Alternatively you can use command line argument -helpDir or set an Xattribute like
Harmony.Scene.helpDir: /usr/local/vrweb/help
which gives the directory to the help or an URL in case you have uploaded the files to a local server, e.g.:
Harmony.Scene.helpDir: http://foo.com/vrml/vrweb/help/vrwebhlp.html

If you unpacked the help files yourself, you should move the help directory to become a subdir of ~/.vrweb. The subdirectory .vrweb will be used for other purposes, such as saving user preferences and caching of inline data, in future releases.

Similarily, to view fonts (AsciiText nodes) in VRML scenes, you have to unpack fonts.tar.gz in ~/.vrweb calling
gzip -cd fonts.tar.gz | tar xvf -
(a subdirectory fonts will be created). If the fonts are located at a different place, create a symbolic link, use argument -fontDir, or set the Xattribute Harmony.Scene.fontDir.

As described in the Browser Configuration section above, you have to decide whether to use Netscape or Mosaic. In both cases, the webbrowser must be running to accept help requests. The calling mechanism is the same as for anchors. There you also get to know, how to define a proxy host for anchor requests.

You are now ready to view this help from VRweb: Just select "Overview" in the Help menu or press F1.

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