A lot of the ideas would seem to be presuming that every link is an enclosed
link . i.e. a physical object, like a doorway which will take you to the next
part of the world by the user either moving through it or clicking on it.
However it is obvious that many of the people writing for this group are
imagining more .. i.e. rolling countryside's, roads, streets.
There would seem to be perhaps a way of solving this problem without changing
the nature of the links, and without relying on too much co-operation between
each of the sites.
An idea is to use the caching capabilities of the browser - that once you move
from one VRML area to another then the browser simply places the last area
within the 3d view but further in the background, and as you move through the
world this builds up around you.
In some ways this is a development of what HTML does already . i.e. the links
change colour once you've been there, but is also a massive improvement in that
you will be able to in VRML actually see those previous areas stretching away to
the horizon (to a limit set within preferences..).
The links that you haven't chosen would be darkness, helping you also to
navigate around this world. Another benefit will be that this would allow the
VRML files to be kept small.
In regards to where there are multiple links, i.e. to where you move to an area
which takes you back to one you've been which is already say on the horizon,
then I think it is still possible for this model to work - the browser could
give you a choice of either adding the same VRML location to this new area, or
for you returning to its previous rendering. I can't see a problem really with
having several versions of the same area, with different links 'back' as it
were.
The VRML world does not need to be a world already set in stone before you see
it -- one of the exciting things with the Web is that the viewer constructs it
for him/herself. How about applying this to VRML, so that VRML becomes a
dynamic, ever different world, depending on the way the user explores it?
It would seem though that there is still room for the 'enclosed' link, the two
way object, by conceiving of the possibility of different levels.
Going through an enclosed doorway will take you to a fresh level, and you will
only see the last level through the doorway. With this type of link, you could
walk around that doorway and still stay in the same level; only when you move
through it would you be taken to another level.
This type of link would be able to be anywhere in the VRML document; the other
would be the 'edge' of that document.
I haven't yet studied the spec. of VRML, but would it be possible to include
edge link info in a way so that the browser knows that once you've reached the
edge of the VRML page you must move on...?
Another thought is on order and organisation...
I think the web as it is now is a good answer to how things will go. The
commercial sites which need to allow people to find them will become ordered and
very structured. The non-commercial sites will generally be unordered with
endless tricks of navigation and unexpected twists - the wilds of the VRML
world... And the sites which dedicate themselves to finding other sites
(Yahoo,Lycos) will become ordered gateways to these sites.
all the best,
Mark.
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Mark G. Weber,
email: [email protected]
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"Try not to understand that which you cannot see.."
A Builder of the Raft .... http://www.vmg.co.uk/