VRML-The Winner by a Node?

VRML-The Winner by a Node?

The web has grown exponentially in the last few years. But the buzz is always onward and upward. The killer app of yesteryear is definitely NSCA Mosaic, the browser that became Netscape. But what is the next killer application to take the web world by storm? Many people believe it might be Virtual Reality. Virtual Reality is an application based on an open standard called VRML.

First off, VRML is another computer language that does pretty much what it says. Just as HTML means “Hypertext Markup Language” and contains the instructions to create hyperlinked text or images that cross reference documents, VRML or “Virtual Reality Modeling Language” contains the instructions or “tags” to construct your very own 3-D world or “realm”.

Furthermore, VRML has the ability to have hyperlinked objects, fully rendered in 3-D. Thus, you might want to place a statue of Michaelangelo’s David in your realm, and place instructions that a click on this object take your cybernaut to a site detailing the life and times of this artist. To the viewer, the object will truly be there, they may walk around it, taking in all the angles, seeing how light hits the object and how it plays upon the object’s features…according to how you’ve built the world, they may even be able to fly over it, or push it over!

The goal of VRML is to create the infrastructure and conventions of cyberspace, a multi user space of many virtual worlds on the Net.

Mark Pesce is considered by all to be “The Man” when it comes to VRML. He is the moderator of the VRML development. When we ask the question, “Why VRML?”, his ideas are the natural place to start.

“For the purposes of continuity in navigation, it is necessary to create a unified conceptualization of space spanning the entire Internet, a spatial equivalent of WWW. This has been called “Cyberspace”, in the sense that it has at least three dimensions, but exists only as a consensual hallucination on the part of the hosts and users which participate within it. There is only one cyberspace, just as there is only one WWW; to imply multiplicity is to defeat the objective of unity.”-Mark Pesce

So basically what Pesce is saying is that “cyberspace” is just that–a real 3-D space. For the user to believe that, they must travel in the flat 2 dimensions of HTML and “make believe” that is a 3-D world. But for full participation in cyberspace the user must truly be in a space, in a world of three dimensions, of sight and sound and light and shadow. In Pesce’s mind, the denial of this virtual reality defeats the purpose of the WWW as a place to come together as active participants. It moves the user closer to true interactivity and facilitates the idea that users are actually in the same place, instead of being remotely connected through modems and terminals.

But really, what is VRML?

“At the highest level of abstraction, VRML is just a way for objects to read and write themselves. Theoretically, the objects can contain anything — 3D geometry, MIDI data, JPEG images, anything. VRML defines a set of objects useful for doing 3D graphics. These objects are called nodes.”-Mark Pesce

So instead of using text, VRML uses objects to convey its message.

For the TV generation, this makes perfect sense. We have grown up as participants in a world immersed in “things”–sights and sounds, colors and feelings. We have limited attention spans–face it kids, we’ve been spoiled by the technology around us. For this fickle bunch, the “Moving Worlds” of VRML is probably the only way to continue the use of the web as virtual meeting house.

VRML also simplifies the web. Instead of knowing that you have to click on a hyperlink, since VRML is based on objects, not text, it offers the chance to move through a virtual door to get to information. Imagine retrieving data in cyberspace by where it is in cyberspace, rather than by what machine it’s stored within! In this model, chat rooms become rooms with “avatars” actual icons for actual people. Instead of reading dry scientific jargon about the DNA molecule, students will climb about in a 3-D model of the double helix.

VRML is closer to reality. It is this simulation of reality that makes it easier and more intuitive to use for those who view the computer and the Internet as necessary evils in a wired world. For this reason, Pesce is trying to keep VRML as open a standard as possible. He wants to keep it out of the hands of corporations and leave it so everyone can participate in its growth. Sort of a power to the cyber-people sentiment!

And sooner or later, I’ll be talking to your avatar in a virtual coffeehouse somewhere in the west side of cyberspace. I can’t wait!