> 1) Hardware. Religious wars here... I have a Mac Quadra AV, and an...
>
not an issue, that is a browser issue, not a VRML issue
> 2) OS. Nobody has mentioned this yet. I wonder if everyone assumes that...
>
same as above
> Now, back to the initial premise. HyTime is the right technology to go with.
> It addresses current issues of real-time communications, supporting graphics,
> animation, audio, event synchronization, etc. (I'll let Eliot expound on this
> further) and is a logical extension of SGML. The technology is scalable and
> practical; we can start with current SGML/HTML authoring tools and build from
> there. This permits us to begin RIGHT NOW with existing tools, such as
Mosaic
> and Lynx, and emacs/w3/psgml/html-mode, and begin practical work immediately
-
> and to bring existing documents into the polyverse. (Polyverse = polymorphic
> virtual universe.) I suggest that we begin by adopting SGML and HyTime
> philosophically, and begin with an HTML+ DTD which we extend (and stay
> compatible with, since HTML+ is still not yet fully developed) for VR
> applications.
>
make it as a language suggestion, but I would rather shoot myself in
the head many times than use SGML.
> So, we need to start with functional technology: SGML.
depends what your definition of functional is. Right now the best way
to create a SGML document is to send it to a company whose job it is to
translate various formats into SGML.
> I'm not saying that we couldn't devise a fine VR system without SGML/HyTime,
> I'm just suggesting we should adopt these practical hypermedia standards that
> exist, as a starting point.
>
HyTime is not a standard yet, it is a proposed standard and as far as I
know, is still under development. You are writing the book on it, so you
probably know better, but that's the last I heard.
> Final suggestion: I think emacs offers the only portable, extensible,
publicly
> available platform for building a system such that you can both create and
> view multimedia documents at this time, so I seriously suggest that we look
> at adopting GNU Emacs as a technology to extend and implement a first-
> generation VR solution. This finesses the GUI issue a bit, and allows us to
> make rapid progress - down a mainstream of technological development, rather
> than up a blind alley (if I may mix my metaphors).
>
I don't think there should be a "specified" development platform, and
if there was one for VR, it wouldn't be emacs. Anyone that has ever tried to
model in Inventor without a modeler will agree with me, I think. I think that
is should be possible to create a scene for VRML in emacs, but I personally
would probably write programs to convert from softImage and such.
Kevin
-- The wages of sin are death, but after they take the taxes out, it's more of a tired feeling really. - Paula Poundstonekmg@colossal.com unitcirc@netcom.com Web Home Page: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/unitcirc/kevin_home.html