Yes (or at least, you *should* be able to), and yes, I think your plan
would work. I think it's a bit impractical in the long run, though. If
nothing else, I have *no* desire to *require* people to have a CD of
standard objects (I think that's unlikely to fly) -- rather, it would
be nice to have a mechanism flexible enough so that if the user *has*
such a thing, it can boost their performance.
There are numerous ways this could be accomplished -- the keyword
scheme that I periodically advocate is only one of several that would
probably suffice. The broad notion is one akin to URNs (and might use
URNs): that an object should be referred to by *name* or *qualities*
instead of just *location*. That way, there is far less barrier for
multiple sites to share objects, and a user can more easily cache
common objects locally.
(Indeed, I can think of at least one scheme that doesn't require
changing the VRML spec: object-library sites. Certain sites could
declare themselves to be repositories for common objects. If we had
browsers that were smart enough to know that objects from these sites
are particularly worth caching, we could get much of the desired
effect. This requires sites powerful and altruistic enough to serve
as libraries, though, and some added browser intelligence. It's not
the most powerful possible scheme, but it is one of the easiest to
implement, probably.)
I think flexibility is essential, though. If we go assuming much about
the user's setup, we're likely to fall on our faces. Ideally, we should
have some mechanism that permits a smart browser to get kick-ass
performance, but doesn't interfere with a dumber one getting the job
done. It's premature for 1.0, and I'm not sure that it's appropriate
for 1.1, but I think we should be aiming to have such a beast by 2.0
(which is, frankly, what I'm aiming at as the first "serious" version
of VRML -- 1.0 is a nice toy, but still *much* too weak to accomplish
much in). It's one of several major issues (like behaviour) that we
need to address if this is going to rise above "toy" status...
-- Justin
Random Quote du Jour:
"Consultant: An expert at being an expert. One who gracefully accepts your
money to find merit in your sound proposal."
-- from White Knights and Poison Pills