A VRML file is a textual description of your VRML world. It is a file containing text that you create with any text editor or word processor. However, Silicon Graphics has developed an application that lets you develop virtual worlds without knowing how to program in VRML. The program is called CosmoWorlds and we will use it to create our solar system projects. 

In order to view the VRML world you create you will need to have a plugin installed in your World Wide Web Browser. The best plugin is Cosmo Player and is free from Silicon Graphics. 
 

VRML, it's pronounced vur'mel and it's not just another plug-in. To a growing community, VRML represents the seeds of a new Web. A Web more like the real world -- experiential, interactive, continuous, and, of course, three dimensional. Its applications span the entire spectrum of both the arts and the sciences. One current application of VRML is on JPL's  Mars Pathfinder mission. 

VRML 2.0 is transforming the Web into a medium that is less like reading a magazine and more like real life. HTML took the Internet and made it accessible to millions of people who are comfortable with 2D graphical user interfaces. 
 
VRML is going to take the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) to the next level by making it accessible to the billions of people who would rather watch TV than shuffle application windows. 
 

Why VRML?

We are hard wired for 3D?  We naturally organize information spatially. Think of receiving a phone call at your desk.  During the call you write down the person's phone number on a Post-It note and stick it off to your left. A week later you go to call that person back and you think "where did I put that phone number." In your mind, you picture the Post-It and look over to see that it is exactly where you left it. 

That is the spatial map that we all have in our heads to keep track of this database called the world. VRML is the key that will unlock the power of this natural ability to organize the current chaos of the Web. 
 

Put some order on the current 2D chaos

The current metaphor for the Web is starting to break. Most people have a bookmark list that runs off the bottom of the page. Even if we were clever enough to categorize the list, now it runs off the side of our screens. Also, take a peek at your monitor, most of us have multiple application windows open and are constantly trying to shuffle around to get to what you want. 
 
These problems are inherent to organizing 
information on a 2D surface. There are only so many pixels to go around. With 3D if you need more space you simply move forward, or you turn your head. In 3D you get infinite screen real estate for a finite number of pixels on the monitor. 
 

VRML file names end with .wrl (sometimes pronounced dot world) extension, which indicates that the file contains a VRML world. 

To check to see if Cosmo Player is installed correctly go to about plugins under the help menu in Netscape Navigator and look for cosmo player. 
 
 
 

  The origions of VRML date back to the 
middle of 1994, to a European Web conference in which Tim Berners-Lee (considered to be te father of the World Wide Web) talked about the need for a 3D Web standard.  He coined the term VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language) as an acronym to parallel HTML.  The name was soon changed to Virtual Reality Modeling Language.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

HTML took the Internet and made it accessible to millions of people who are comfortable with 2D graphical user interfaces.  VRML 2.0 is transforming the Web into a medium that is less like reading a magazine and more like real life