4. Introduction into VRML 2.0

We want to give you a brief overview of VRML 2.0. We assume that you are already at least a little bit familiar with VRML 1.x. If you're not, well, than you have not read the previous sections... :-)

To start with we will give you a high level summary of VRML 2.0 features and the possibilities you have with these language. VRML 1.0 provided the basics needed to create and view static 3D worlds.

But with VRML 2.0 you can do much more. Just imagine you...

get up early in the morning because your alarm bell rings. You open your eyes and see the sun slowly rising. It changes from red to orange and finally getting brighter all the time to yellow.

You look out of the window and see distant mountains still covered by morning fog. In the streets cars move but their sounds seem to fade away as you hear the door to the kitchen open.

A small robot enters and asks you to have breakfast with him. Still a little bit tired you decide to follow him. He leads the way to the kitchen. But since you are not very rich you could not afford an expensive, polite robot. So just before you enter the kitchen he closes the door with a bang.

You reach towards the door and want to open it, but you can't feel the door's wood. All you feel is...

your computer screen. You just entered a world you could create using VRML 2.0!

This page was created by Helmut Doleisch and Edgar Weippl on November 26, 1996.