FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4-7-95
Contact: Ann Redelfs
SDSC, External Relations
(619) 534-5032
(619) 534-5113 fax
[email protected]
The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) announced today the availability
of a new VRML Repository on the World Wide Web for exchanging information,
software, and utilities related to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language
(VRML), a rapidly emerging industry standard for exchanging
three-dimensional data over the Internet. The repository, located at
http://www.sdsc.edu/vrml/, is sponsored by SDSC, Netscape Communications
Corporation, Silicon Graphics, Inc., and Template Graphics Systems, Inc.
VRML was designed by members of the Internet community to promote the use
of three-dimensional data on the hyperlinked "spider's web" of documents
available on the World Wide Web. VRML is similar in concept to the
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), but it replaces the two-dimensional
text-based environment with a virtual environment in which users can
display complex, three-dimensional data sets. Many VRML documents are
interconnected with hyperlinks, some of which provide access to text,
animations, images, and sounds described in HTML documents. The VRML 1.0
specifications were released in August 1994, and future versions are
planned to allow for animations, motion physics, and real-time
multiple-user interaction.
Several major companies are developing VRML browsers that function in a
similar manner to standard text-based Web browsers such as Netscape or
Mosaic. One such VRML viewer, called "WebSpace," is being developed by
Silicon Graphics Inc. and Template Graphics Systems Inc. and will be
available in May 1995.
In the future, users may navigate through and interact with complex data
sets from within interactive simulations called "virtual worlds." "VRML
could significantly alter the way people seek and view information on the
Internet," says John Moreland, keeper of the VRML Repository at SDSC. "It
has the potential to make engineering, education, shopping, and
entertainment via the Internet as easy as working in a laboratory, entering
a classroom, going to a store, and going to the theater."
SDSC will host the first VRML Symposium on December 13-15, 1995. The
symposium will feature technical discussions focused on the future of VRML,
two days of technical paper presentations, and a day and a half of vendor
exhibits. For more information: http://www.sdsc.edu/Events/vrml_symposium/.
SDSC, a national laboratory for computational science and engineering, is
sponsored by the National Science Foundation, administered by General
Atomics, and affiliated with the University of California at San Diego. For
additional information: http://www.sdsc.edu/ or contact Ann Redelfs,
619-534-5032, [email protected].