Here's a suggestion for interactivity/behaviors in our time
--- WITHOUT CHANGING THE 1.0 SPEC.
(at least if I have this thought out ok. There may be
a hole or two, but I think something like this should work.)
So, you ask, how do we do this without changing the spec?
Naturally, by making the browser-writers' lives even more complicated!
How about using the function that's in many browsers like Netscape,
of refreshing in-line stuff (read: WWWINLINE).
And we could have it so that the browser could be switched to
transmit current coordinates, as described in the spec for WWWAnchor with
map=POINT.
The WWWINLINE could be a CGI script... and the possibilities are
endless.
So, this is a little bit of a kluge, sort of like merging
WWWAnchor and WWWINLINE... so it does change the spec a tiny bit,
but not really, sort of!!! I don't think you'd need to make any
changes to the actual VRML description of the world, just choose
a setting on the browser. On the browser, you might have a hot-button
which says, update in-lines, giving my coords at the end of the URL.
Example:
We could have the super-detailed fractal geometric cyberscape
rolling around us, with a time-variant power source floating
around in the ether that tries not to get too close to us.
As an inline refreshable object/world, the power source's position could
wander around while we wander around (in a dependent relationship).
We just click once in a while for an update, or we could set the
intelligence settings on our browser for regular refreshes?!!!
Does this sound most excellent, or what?
Naturally, this means the interactive/behaviors nature of it all
lies in the CGI. What's also neat is that we get this update of the
small-file-size power source object,
without having to reload the multi-gigabyte background!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(The browser can still adjust lighting etc.)
Let's do it!
Adrian
P.S. The more I think about the possibilities for browsers,
the more I'm thinking how much fun it would be to write one!
(Yah, I bet Tony and y'all out there who are writing them are
thinking it's lots of fun right now. :)
P.P.S. Tech note: you may be worried about the moving around
of the in-line thingie, but just set a big bbox (bounding box).
---------- ------ ----- --- -- -
Universal Coordinate System
Judging by the discussion of the UCS (and to an extent portals too),
I think that we are being way too constrained by our earthly
conceptions. We already have a UCS : it's called URL. So what
if it's not in decimal measure... it's just a different measure/topology.
Shake up the paradigms and escape these earthly metaphors --
or sky WILL be the limit for YOU, while I'm up in the stars and
Hyperspaces, watching the Chevy Novas.
--- - --- -- - --- ---- -
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Next IRC Meeting
Things went well last week, so let's meet again on
Internet Relay Chat channel #vrml this
coming Tuesday May 9th, 10pm East Coast / 7 pm West Coast USA
= 0200 Wed May 10 in the fourth dimension of the Universal
Coordinate System known as UCT (a.k.a. GMT). hao ma?
If you're not familiar with IRC, if you have it you
can probably start it with the command "irc" , and use the
commands "/join #vrml" to join the #vrml channel, and
"/quit" and "/help" for their respective purposes!
If you missed last time and would like to see
a somewhat readable transcript, you can browse at
http://pond.cso.uiuc.edu/~ducky/pound-vrml.lot.txt
-- - - - - - --- - - - -- - -
Cyber-Awareness
I've been doing some Tai Chi recently... and reading up on
some martial arts books. Also, there's the Gibson-genre
"The Rim" book out which has martial arts in cyberspace.
I've been thinking about how a martial artist or dancer
might consider mental awareness of their cyberbody/avatar. Often
in dance or martial arts, you'll be getting in touch with
where you body parts are and how your muscles are moving. Imagine
this in cyberspace!
To an extent this may already happen when you look
at the brain-pattern recognition / control of computers. For instance
you get a person in alpha state and then they learn how to move
a cursor on the screen (some work done on this at Wadsworth labs
New York State Dept. of Health I believe, ntm other places),
by their brainwaves. (BTW, they of course have EKG-like 'trodes
on their forehead.)
Cheers,
Adrian
P.S. Gee, I've been working on finishing a new issue of my Scott's
Thoughts newsletter ([email protected] message: "info thoughts-l") for a
while, and here I have basically written a whole issue... jeez.
-------------------------------------------------------
Adrian Scott, Ph.D. ([email protected])
Scott Virtual Theme Parks, [email protected]
http://www.hk.super.net/~scotta/theme <--moving soon