
VRweb 1.1.2
===========


VRweb is a browser for 3D worlds and scenes modeled in the Virtual
Reality Modeling Language (VRML). VRweb is a joint project between
IICM, home of Hyper-G, NCSA, home of Mosaic, and the University of
Minnesota, home of Gopher.


New since 1.1:

    o Collision Detection (you'll no longer fly through walls)

    o new Mesa driver (rel. 1.2.6): *faster*, improved texture
      mapping, gamma correction, less Z buffer memory demand

    o remote call interface (successive scenes into same window)

    o support for Spaceball

    o bugfixes


UNIX users upgrading from an earlier version need to change the VRweb
commandline in ~/.mailcap to make use of remote calls. See
install.html in the on-line help.

The current Windows version is based on release 1.1 and does not yet
contain the features listed above (but will be updated soon).

More information can be found at the VRweb technical home page:
http://hyperg.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/vrweb



Supported Platforms
-------------------

UNIX:

o SGI: OpenGL and Mesa
o DEC ALPHA: OpenGL and Mesa
o DEC Ultrix: Mesa
o SUN Solaris: Mesa
o SUN OS: Mesa
o HPUX: Mesa
o LINUX: Mesa
o IBM AIX: Mesa

Windows:

o Windows NT: OpenGL
o Windows 3.x (win32s): Mesa
o Windows 95: OpenGL and Mesa


The Mesa library (by brianp@ssec.wisc.edu) is an OpenGL workalike that
supports 3D graphics through standard windows calls (X11 or Microsoft
Windows). It neither needs nor benefits from HW accelerators.

OpenGL needs a working GLX extension for your X-server, and is part of
the Windows NT operating system, and free available for Windows 95.



Source Code
-----------

VRweb source code is availabe for both UNIX/X11 and Windows.

UNIX/vrweb.src-1.1.2.tar.gz contains the source code for UNIX/X11.
Look at COPYRIGHT for usage conditions, and INSTALLATION for an
installation guide.

The source for the Windows is available in Windows/vrw_src.zip,
including Makefiles for Microsoft Visual C++ 2.x. Read file readme.src
as installation guide.



Features
--------

Support of VRML 1.0 using QvLib 1.0 as parser. Some VRML extensions
(Inventor) are handled (e.g. LightModel), others are reported and
ignored.

Grouping, Separators, Coordinates, Normals, Materials, Cameras, Light
sources, Transformations, primitive shapes, IndexedFaceSet,
IndexedLineSet, PointSet, MaterialBinding. Since July 17: ShapeHints
(except concave faces). Since Aug 3: LOD (level of detail). Since Sep
19: Texturing (limited to in-file texture images).

WWWAnchor support with Netscape, Mosaic and Harmony under UNIX (since
release 1.1).

Several navigation modes: "flip", "walk", "fly", "heads up", "fly
to". Flip is a kind of examiner, heads-up is an easy-to-use walk
viewer. Look for the usage hints in VRweb's status line. Fly-to is
used for a controlled approach to a selectable point of interest in
the model (available as of Rel. 1.1). See the explanations in the
on-line help (for Rel. 1.1).

Optional switching to a lower display quality during motion.

Collision detection (Rel. 1.1.2).



Not Yet Supported
-----------------

Among VRML features not supported in the current release are nodes
dealing with text (AsciiText, FontStyle).

WWWInline is supported only in the Harmony version, and will be
implemented next under UNIX along with texture mapping.

Support for WWWAnchor under Windows is our next priority.




How to Get It
-------------

VRweb is available by anonymous ftp from:

  IICM         ftp://ftp.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb

and from the following mirror sites:

  Australia    ftp://ftp.cinemedia.com.au/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb
               ftp://gatekeeper.digital.com.au/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb
  Austria      ftp://ftp.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb
  Czech Rep.   ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/Net/Infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb
               (also via http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/ftp/Net/Infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb)
  Germany      ftp://elib.zib-berlin.de/pub/InfoSystems/Hyper-G/VRweb
               ftp://ftp.ask.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/infosystems/Hyper-G/VRweb
  Italy        ftp://ftp.esrin.esa.it/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb
  New Zealand  ftp://ftp.cs.auckland.ac.nz/pub/HMU/Hyper-G/VRweb
  Portugal     ftp://ftp.ua.pt/pub/infosystems/www/Hyper-G/VRweb
               (also via http://ftp.ua.pt/infosystems/www/Hyper-G/VRweb)
  Spain        ftp://ftp.etsimo.uniovi.es/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb
  Sweden       ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Networked.Information.Retrieval/Hyper-G/VRweb
  UK           ftp://unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/Hyper-G/VRweb
  USA          ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Hyper-G/VRweb
               ftp://ftp.utdallas.edu/pub/Hyper-G/VRweb



Mailing list
------------

A mailing list for VRweb is available, where you can send questions
and get feedback from the developers and other VRweb users.

To subscribe, send mail to

	listproc@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at

with message body

	subscribe vrweb YourNameHere

(no subject needed).


To unsubscribe, mail "unsubscribe vrweb" to the same address.

To send mail to all members of the list, simply compose your
message or question and send it to

	vrweb@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at



Feedback
--------

Please note that VRweb is unsupported software, but feedback is very
welcome. Please send bug reports to

	vrweb-bugs@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at

including the platform and version of VRweb you are using.



Send other comments, suggestions, questions about distribution
and licensing, etc. to

	vrweb-info@iicm.tu-graz.ac.at


We do read all of the mail we receive, but unfortunately cannot
respond to every piece of mail individually. Please bear with us...



last updated: Feb 6, 1996
                                        Michael Pichler,
                                        Keith Andrews
