Re: Content, net-distribution aspects of VRML/Inventor/HTML/WWW

Mark Waks ([email protected])
Mon, 3 Oct 1994 21:57:44 -0700


>"Transparent" portals are not hard under the current design of VRML (as I
>understand it), but not in the way you might want. If I want to have a
>door, through which I can see your VRML scene, I can copy your models and
>put them on my page. The would be a button that would get activated when
>you cross through the door... This might be one way of doing what you
>want. I can't think of another non-scary way to do this. Anyone else
>have any ideas?

I think you sent this directly to me, not to the list, FYI...

The suggestion you give isn't terrible -- it's kind of a clever hack,
actually, and would allow us more-or-less the look-and-feel I envision
with the current definitions. In the long run, though, it's a hassle.
What we really want, for the long run, is the ability to define
"doorways" which look in on other scenes. Fast browsers, with good
net connections, would be able to prefetch the scenes beyond those
doorways, so that the user can see through them. Slower browsers wouldn't
do the prefetch; they'd show some sort of closed door, which the user
would click on in order to open it. (More-or-less the current model.)

It's certainly not critical, which is why I'm not emphasizing it for
putting in now. But I suspect it'll prove a necessary feature in order
to really make cyberspace feel "seamless", which will probably start
becoming important in a year or two (once this stuff is working well
enough for us to started getting a little jaded)...

[If you post your original to the list, please send this along as well...]

-- Justin

Random Quote du Jour:

"Dear Mr. Zabel,
Thank you for your ``Mr. Tomorrow'' story synopsis. Unfortunately, we are
unable to publish anything quite so puerile."
-- from "The Dead Muse"