Re: On the VRML 1.0 spec, and VRML in general

Brian Behlendorf (brian@wired.com)
Fri, 9 Dec 1994 19:48:58 -0800 (PST)

On Wed, 7 Dec 1994, James C Deikun wrote:
> > > This brings me to another several points:
> > > o Is the primary use of VRML ever going to be as static .wrl files?
> > > I don't see how this could possibly be; it would be a good idea to
> > > figure out some standard for doing dynamic modification of a scene
> > > over the network to allow for non-predetermined dynamism.
> >
> > HTML is extremely useful even though it is a static description of a page.
> > Why do you think 3D scenes are different?
>
> Not even HTML lives by the static alone--see forms, imagemaps, and cgi
> scripts of all kinds. Clumsy, but they show the desire and need for
> interaction beyond the pure static model. The demands for interactivity
> in 3d scenes will be much greater.

Most definitely, but I don't see what VRML has that disallows this
either... once you read a vrml file into an application that application
can do whatever it wants with it. What you want is some way of
controlling that application's interaction with the file, or
communicating interaction over the net - the concensus was, let's wait to
see how the static language is used in a dynamic environment before
deciding upon a dynamic language that might not fit the bill exactly
right. Open Inventor has shown there is at least one path for this to
take.

Brian

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