Many years ago, VRML was invented. The promise was to be able to put 3D worlds and models in a webpage. Even more than even today's technologies, the language allowed to create behaviors, sense the user, add sound, and many other cool things.
Even the name was cool: Virtual Reality Modeling Language. And "X3D Profile Immersive".
But we never had something that allows the original idea: just put your world in a webpage.
I have recently discovered (maybe many already know) that X3D V4 as said now in
Web3d.org, is helping actively
X_ITE to be developed, and that way, X_ITE now supports all VRML (or X3D Profile Immersive) completely. This means, that AT LAST! we can just put our worlds online again and no browser required, with all ecmascript and all VRML nodes supported.
So 23 years later, VRML is what it was supposed to be. We can finally get our worlds visited by people without having to install any plugin! And VRML becomes a modern solution again.
Imagine what we could do now, without having to optimize worlds so much, as now everybody has a fast connection and a fast PC. VRML has a lot of potential power, that was never used.
I have put some of my old worlds online at my personal page:
These are worlds that you didn't see by that time, as we were doing them and then we abandoned the idea. There are still 4 that I have to adapt. Although X_ITE supports everything, the code has to be completely standard. For this,
view3dscene has a nice console to see if everything is ok.
HOW TO PUT YOUR OLD AND NEW WORLDS ONLINE AGAIN
Once built, you must
host your files on a server. There are free servers to host your website, some with very good service. For example:
- Awardspace: very easy to use. You can upload your files by ftp (it gives you ready-made downloadable configuration files) or by using the file manager. Free subdomains like atwebpages.com and others. They guarantee 99.9% uptime.
- Atspace: also very easy. It gives you a subdomain such as atspace.eu.
- x10Hosting: it has FTP and a file manager that lets you upload a zip of your files and unzip it on the server, in addition to FTP. It can host your domain name for free.
Among the 3, I recommend Awardspace, for its simplicity, speed and reliability
Once up, create a website. This website you are on was created with Typesetter CMS. Typesetter doesn't use databases or anything complex, installation is very easy. If not, use one of the software that the server you have chosen has. Or make a simple web page. Of all these options, the simplest is to use Typesetter.
At this point, you will have:
- A .wrl file (VRML) or a series of them joined by a .wrl file that loads them
- A conventional web page
We need a bridge between the two. The way to do it is to create an .html document with this content:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="https://create3000.github.io/code/x_ite/4.6.16/dist/x_ite.css"/>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="https://create3000.github.io/code/x_ite/4.6.16/dist/x_ite.min.js"></script>
<style>
X3DCanvas {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
position: absolute;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<X3DCanvas src="folder/world.wrl">
<p>Your browser may not support all features required by X_ITE!</p>
</X3DCanvas>
</body>
</html>
As you can see, there are two parts to copy. The first one is put in the head section, and it is the load of the VRML / X3D viewer called X_ite. X_ite can be downloaded, it's just a couple of files, and use it from your own server if you prefer. If not, just paste these yellow lines inside the head section.
In X3DCanvas, you can see that the width and height of the frame displayed by the VRML is expressed. The width and height as it is in our example is for full window in your browser or mobile. You can specify a size as usual in html, but also remove the "position: absolute;" line if you do.
In the body part you have to paste the code that specifies which world to load. The first line is:
<X3DCanvas src="folder/world.wrl">
In this line, "folder" is the folder on your server that contains the VRML file. If there is no such folder, because the world is in the root, do not put anything, and directly put the name of the .wrl file for example:
<X3DCanvas src="world.wrl">
Here world.wrl is our .wrl file (VRML).
Once this bridge page already exists, you can put a link to it from your website. By clicking on the link, visitors will enter the virtual world.
HOW TO USE VRML CONTENT ON ANY PAGE:
Of course, you can also, on any web page or blog, put a VRML / X3D world. To do this, copy the code part of head to the head section of the page or template you use.
Then wherever you want to insert your .wrl file, just paste the body part.
If you create VRML worlds, I would love to link them in my personal page,
Hipercubo, where you can also visit my own worlds built in 1998. Write to me at jordircardona@yahoo.com
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