Wynn Winkler's 3D Networked Avatar Client/Server Demo
(from last semester) VRML Building Editor Notes
Wynn has looked at many tools ranging from game engine level editors to
architectural tools. One major issue was to find a tool that used a
published standard file format. After speculating that VRML or X3D would
be sufficient for our purposes, we initially experienced disappointment
(see the Punch example below) but are now optimistic that VRML will indeed
allow us to model the building using 3rd party tools, and obtain an output
that will be usable within our Unicon application.
scene009e.wrl
Int3D
Here is a VRML version of our please lab, produced as a file only
4.5KB* by Int3D, an outstanding Italian VRML tool. *It depends on
Int3D's external libraries of VRML objects, which are larger.
Punch!
Here are screen shots of a virtual PLEASE lab, and some nearby rooms and
cooridoors, prototyped using Punch!software professional home design
suite, a $70 commercial tool from www.punchsoftware.com.
Here is the VRML world punch exports for this facility. It is a couple
megabytes, due largely to the high quality (many polygons) of the chairs.
Note that Punch doesn't apparently support textures, only materials, and
the exported VRML does not look as nice as the view rendered by Punch itself.
The VRML looks easily parsable if we wanted to read it into a Unicon
program, but there is so MUCH of it (2MB for this simple prototype), and
it is unstructured/uncommented enough, that it is not a very attractive
candidate for us to want to use it for our virtual CS department model. On
the other hand, look at how beautiful these screenshots are. We should
consider using material surfaces for most objects, and only going with
textures when they are really needed. Lighting is obviously a big factor in
the attractiveness of these images. Also: if textures aren't used, how are
the clouds being rendered?
nmsu001.wrl