Re: LANG: VRML 1.x Binary Format Proposal

Don Brutzman ([email protected])
Tue, 30 May 1995 23:21:30 -0700 (PDT)

Gavin Bell writes:
> On May 30, 5:51pm, Mark Pesce wrote:
> > >Extensions are probably rare enough that they should just be represented
> in
> > >ASCII. Now is probably a good time to start thinking about
> > >internationalization, though-- in the Inventor group, we're contemplating
> > >changing from a pure 7-bit ASCII format to a UTF8-based 8-bit format. And
> > >we'll probably allow node type names, DEF/USE names, string fields--
> > >EVERYTHING-- to be UTF8.

A concern: it sounds good but will probably mean that .wrl files with 8-bit
characters will not survive posting via electronic mail (at least for
many mailers). That will make it harder to use for people in general.
Every time we move away from human readability of vrml we risk losing
some of the momentum of the WWW (currently growing at about 20%/month or
eightfold increase per year). If people who are interested in VRML
see stuff they can't even find on the keyboard it will discourage
participation.

all the best, Don

-- 
Don Brutzman   Naval Postgraduate School, Code UW/Br     work 408.656.2149
               Monterey California 93943-5000 USA        fax  408.656.3679
AUV Underwater Virtual World ftp://taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil/pub/auv/auv.html