Introduction to the Tutorial

This is an interactive tutorial for VRML 2.0. The main objective of this tutorial is to explain the basic concepts of VRML 2.0 in an interactive fashion. 

The present version is an alpha version. It will be expanded with further text and more examples as time goes by. This tutorial works best with Netscape 3.X or higher. With Internet Explorer I still haven't found a way to properly update the frames. If you do know how to do it please let me know.


Note: You need to have Javascript enabled in order to take full advantage of the tutorial.

The tutorial is likely to have bugs and concepts which are not clear, please help me to improve this tutorial, send me mail (press the envelope at the navigation bar) with comments, suggestions, bugs discovered no matter how small. 

Scripts and Prototypes are not dealt with in this version but will be included some time in the future. 

All the other Nodes in the specification are described. For most of the nodes with user defined fields, this tutorial allows the user to see how the fields affect the overall appearance of the graphics. Source code is provided for these later nodes to help the user to get a global picture of VRML 2.0. A set of axis is provided in some examples to help the user to understand the location of the shapes (note: the axis are not present in the source code provided). See the help section for an explanation of the frames structure of the tutorial. Routes are also present in this tutorial. 

In order to further explore VRML 2.0 the official VRML 2.0 specification is essential. There are now several books on the subject. I have read and enjoyed "The VRML 2.0 Sourcebook" by Ames, Nadeau and Moreland, published by John Wiley & Sons, and the "VRML 2.0 Handbook" by Jed Hartman and Josie Wernecke, published by Addison-Wesley (Note: I'm not related in any way to the authors or the publishers mentioned above). 

Important Note: This tutorial was designed according to the official VRML 2.0 specification. Some VRML browsers and plug-ins do not fully implement the VRML specification, so it is possible that the worlds present in this tutorial don't agree with the descriptions provided or with your expectations.  I had to use 3 VRML plug-ins to test the tutorial so beware. 

This tutorial works best with the Netscape 3.X or higher browsers. The plug-ins used during the construction of this browser were: 

Cosmo Player by Silicon Graphics, version beta3.a 

Live3D, the one which comes with Netscape Communicator 

WorldView v2.0 beta 4 from Intervista 

This tutorial can also be used as a test for browsers and plug-ins to see to what extent the implementation is compatible with the VRML 2.0 specification.