"Chris B" <c_b### [at] btconnectcom> wrote:

> It is already possible to use VRML to describe a scene (not a POVRay scene).
> VRML has been about since about 1994.
> There is a project working to convert it to an XML base (xVRML) as it was
> originaly based on SGML principles. In fact I think they released an XML
> schema for it way back in 2003.

yes
and the xVRML Project has mad significant strides
since this note was posted...

see:  http://www.xvrml.net/

the spec sections for static scene elements are almost completed
and the sections for dynamics come next

an initial tech-demo viewer application is avail through the above URI

> I think there are probably lots of people on the VRML news groups and in the
> xVRML community that are interested in such a system.

I would agree

> I myself took a brief interest in this before discovering POVRay.

interesting the paths we all follow...
I took the opposite route
shifting my energy from PoV to VRML in 1994
and these past couple of years
focusing on developing an XML-based VR language (xVRML)

> put me off VRML (and the concept of using tagged markup languages for scene
> description in general) is the enourmously verbose manner used to describe
> an object.
> As has already been mentioned, POVRays Scene Description Language provides a
> highly elegant and concise yet flexible way to describe objects.

IMHO: PoV and other static-image-oriented systems
have different target domains and audiences than web-based VR
so I think of this as comparing apples and doughnuts

Constructivist approaches in education include
structuring lessons to "build on prior knowledge"
and we are trying to apply that lesson to xVRML

anyone who can understand HTML code
can learn to understand xVRML in a **very** brief time
because it is deliberately structured to take advantage of
existing understanding of HTML and other tag-based markup languages
already held by new content creators

I have been testing this out this Quarter
at the college where I teach...
I am teaching the same "intro to vr" class
which I have taught for five years now...
the students seem to have
about the same base of prior knowledge as always
and are about as smart as always
and yet this term
I switched to using the current (beta) xVRML version
and to using the current (alpha) tech-demo viewer app ("Carina")
and suddenly I have a class going through the material
at literally twice the rate that classes have done
so over the past 5 years
so I feel there is at least preliminary/anecdotal evidence
that this approach is working effectively

> scenes, and even then I've never seen any VRML scenes that come close to the
> sophistication of some of the newbie POVRay scenes posted on the povray
> newsgroups.

but of course...
the PoV newbies are working to create things which
consist of one rendered frame at a time
and which is not necessarily going to be
downloaded off of the web
while VR scene newbies are working to create things which
people can "fly through" at a decent multi-framerate
and which *are* necessarily going to be
accessed over the Web

different targets and domains

IMHO a lot of people who want to generate
photorealistic raytraced stills
and slowly-constructed animations
can also find a lot of interesting things to do
with lightweight 3D VR
rapidly obtained from the Web
and rapidly rendered as a just-in-time
animation under the control of the user

jeffs
http://www.xvrml.net/

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