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NEXUS IN THE SOLAR PLEXUS.VRML
Jason Cunliffe (jasonic@panix.com)
Sat, 10 Sep 1994 08:33:17 -0400 (EDT)
* Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
* Next message: Gregor Markowitz: "Re: Standard Graphics Set"
* Previous message: David Cake: "Re: Standard Graphics Set"
I have watched and followed the recent
script/api/coordinate/compiler/language/vrml identity-crisis with
great
interest and also some impatience like many others I suspect. As a
designer-end.user/dreamer I have a slightly different set of
priorities
and focus from many here who are more keenly endowed with engineers'
genes
and emotional response systems. So here is my $0.02 of purple prose:
By my reckoning, so far there have been three waves of VRML-syndrome.
The first was the almost overwhelming initial response from everyone's
collective net.vr.3d.graphics.synapse unconscious when this VRML thing
was
first announced. No one knew what it was, but everyone wanted it. And
everyone wanted it to be something where they could build, propagate
and
share their own dreams and realities. And it was vast, complex,
contradictory and poly-synchronous in its scale and potential.
That was the first proof of concept.
The second involved a lot of push=me=pull=you arguments about means
and
ends, open vs. proprietary, practicable vs. ideal etc.... Eventually
some
of that dust settled and the survey was undertaken in a fairly healthy
spirit of partisanship. Among that cr op OpenInventor emerged as
having
probably more going for it right now than the others. All share some
common ground, all follow design compromises, I mean constraints.
This was primitive initiation rites.
The third has been the back-to-school re-iterative
script/api/coordinate
nexus which has been very valuable in my mind mostly because I am now
convinced that we are severely limited here by our own vocabulary and
its
semantic ancestors. At the same time as having enormous respect for
those
brave enough to debate these questions, I can't help feeling this is
brilliant plot by Mr.. Billsoft to undermine and test the courage and
tenacity of VRML dreamers and builders...
This was puberty rites.
No matter which system is used, it is going to need adaptation and
evolution towards the kind of world in which it is going to be
applied.
And despite everyone's elegant and compelling visions, none can really
know what that world is going to be. Especially if VRML fulfills one
of
its initial missions, namely to bring accessible interactive
3D-ualization
via the web to the non-hacker, non foley.vandam-reading public.
The painful part in building this spec is that there is sensitivity to
initial conditions and this clearly includes: the early selection of
scene description, linguistic meta-logies, and attitudes with which
this
project is cooperatively embraced.
The challenge here now is to fuse enough complementary symbiotic
visions and
perspectives together that we will have created a dynamically viable
approach. To use some classical terminology, what's missing IMHO from
the
recent discussion is more top-down design. What do you want to do with
it? What might someone else want to do with it? How many other
existing
and thriving authoring systems, rendering engines, relational database
widgets, MIDI sequencers, and group protocols etc.. can one imagine
being
used around this VRML thing. All of them and more.
Some people are going to find hand scripts are perfect. Others are
going
to use and modify wysiwyg editors. Others are going to subscribe to
off
the web-shelf conversion utilities. Others are going to commutatively
hack
together parallel systems to create a richer genetic set of software
possibilities. [Rumor has it some astronomical Forth survivors are
going
to embed it in a digital Scan-corder with built-in IP.transceiver and
GPS
sensor. Mattel and Chrysler are very interested].
Hopefully, many will take VRML itself and use it to build a better
versions of itself and its related family of tools and environments.
For instance there is an entire choreographic aspect to VRML which has
understandably been ignored until now. Perhaps we shall call it CVML
(Choreographers Visualization Meta Language). This sister-set of VRML
emerged to handle movement, scheduling, timing, design, prototyping
and
training Arts. Many people, wished to share dynamic time-series
structures
and apply them to integrated 2-D, 3-D, N-D objects and dynamic media.
They
wanted to do this incrementally, independently, individually and
cooperatively . They especially wanted to take advantage of the rich
existing set of 3-D meta-linked and environments built on VRML,
OpenInventor, MIDI, Quicktime, digital video etc... They were very
lucky
that VRML, in particular had been designed to accommodate diff erent
layers of complexity, scale, detail, context and extensibility.
Personally I want it for a component core technology in the
time-stamped,
animated, multi-user, distributed, interactive global visualization
system
I have been obsessed with creating for the past four years. That's why
I'm
here. Seriously.
VRML-list is not sci.viz.vr.www.vrml
I think that would be very popular when there are some tools and some
talent out here using it...
Enough ranting.
Keep up the good works. Thankyou all.
* Next message: Gregor Markowitz: "Re: Standard Graphics Set"
* Previous message: David Cake: "Re: Standard Graphics Set"