My first VRML

Sunday, 06 May 2001

VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) is used to create 3D worlds that can be downloaded and viewed in a web browser, however the technology never really caught on, that did not stop me making a world.

For my Mutlimedia HND (Higher National Diploma) today I made a simplistic model of our solar system.

It is purly to demonstrate VRML, much better things can be achieved with more time. The whole world is 36.8kb so should take about 5-10s to download on a 56k modem.

View the solar system (VRML, requires plugin)
Source code (Plain text)

To view VRML worlds you need a plug-in for your browser.

If you dont already have a VRML (version 1.0 compatible) viewer, and you are using either Internet Explorer or Netscape I recommend you get Cortona (there are others, but this is the best I have found, quick and easy to install).

To get the required parts of Cortona:

First visit this page to get the plug-in (984kb, 2m33s on 56k modem).
Then you need to get it’s 1.0 converter here (32kb, 5s on 56k modem).

Cortona is compatible with VRML 2.0 by default, this 1.0 converter lets it read the older format. The only reason I coded this in 1.0 format is because its quicker to write and learn.