I am somewhat new to this list, but I have lurked a little while and not found
anyone addressing this, so...
Unlike html, which is not real-time, vrml cannot have latency issues. The net wit
will never be fast enough to expect to continually build a 3D scene while
grabbing data over a net of questionable bandwidth. So when I enter a vrml
document and traverse a link to another vrml document, I assume that I will
have to load that entire vr space into my machine. Well, if I am going to do t
that, why can't that document be Inventor, or phigs with a simple extension for
handling links. Both of those file formats can handle VR applications and
are relatively easy to extend and are ported to a variety of platforms. Why
do we need an entirely new vrml language to duplicate something that already
exists and has people who have written applications with it?
Inventor is a very good suggestion for a geometry definition,
while syntax for links and link notation could be much like
html, and any realtime updates of motion, etc could be
based on Distributed Interactive Simulation.
We should seriously examine these standards for
good features, overlap, and possible inclusion.
There are some problems with Inventor format too, though.
One is the lack of formal grammar - the Inventor
group at Silicon Graphics where it originates can change it
to suit their whims.
-Randy
(reply to stiles@aic.lockheed.com)