December 9, 1997
An interactive game teaching the basics of navigating 3D spaces with Cosmo Player 2.0.
These Release Notes describe the 2.0 release of Cosmo Software's Cosmo Player for Windows95 and WindowsNT. The following sections are included:
For the latest version of the Cosmo Player 2.0 Release Notes, visit the cosmo.sgi.com
web site.
NOTE: REDISTRIBUTION OF THE SOFTWARE LICENSED HEREUNDER REQUIRES THE EXECUTION OF A SEPARATE LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH SILICON GRAPHICS, INC.
Cosmo(tm) Player 2.0 Release for Win95/WinNT
Developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Boulevard, Mountain View, CA 94043 Copyright © 1997, Silicon Graphics, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Silicon Graphics®, OpenGL® and the Silicon Graphics Logo® are registered trademarks and the OpenGL logo(tm), Cosmo(tm), the Cosmo logo(tm), Cosmo Worlds(tm) and Cosmo(tm)Player are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. ActiveMovie and DirectX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
COSMO(tm) SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT*
SILICON GRAPHICS, INC., BY AND THROUGH COSMO SOFTWARE, A SILICON GRAPHICS COMPANY ("Cosmo"), IS WILLING TO LICENSE COSMO SOFTWARE TO YOU ONLY UPON THE CONDITION THAT YOU ACCEPT ALL OF THE TERMS CONTAINED IN THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT ("Agreement"). READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS LICENSE CAREFULLY. YOUR USE OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE INDICATES YOUR ASSENT TO BE BOUND BY THE LICENSE TERMS SET FORTH BELOW.
1. DEFINITIONS
The "Cosmo"(tm) software in binary form (hereafter "Licensed Software") is provided to you subject to Cosmo's copyright and other intellectual property rights.
2. LICENSE GRANT AND NOTICES
Cosmo and its licensors retain exclusive ownership of the Licensed Software. Cosmo hereby grants to you ("you") a non-exclusive license to use a single copy of the Licensed Software. No license is granted to you for any other purpose. The above license is subject to all terms of this Agreement including, without limitation, the following: 1. You agree not to reverse engineer or disassemble the Licensed Software. 2. You agree not to remove or obscure proprietary notices of Cosmo ( You agree not to alter the size, color and quality of the logo).
3. RESTRICTED RIGHTS.
RESTRICTED RIGHTS: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions of FAR 52.227-14(g)(2)(6/87) and FAR 52.227-19(6/87), or DFAR 252.227-7015(b)(6/95) and DFAR 227.7202-3(a).
4. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
COSMO PROVIDES THE LICENSED SOFTWARE TO YOU "AS IS". COSMO MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES ABOUT THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AND HEREBY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT). NEITHER COSMO NOR ITS LICENSORS SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES SUFFERED BY YOU AS A RESULT OF USING, MODIFYING OR DISTRIBUTING THE LICENSED SOFTWARE OR ITS DERIVATIVES.
5. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
IN NO EVENT SHALL EITHER PARTY BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOST REVENUES OR PROFITS, OR OTHER SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING WITH RESPECT TO THE LICENSED SOFTWARE AND RELATED MATERIALS OR ARISING OUT OF THIS AGREEMENT, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
This provision shall survive the expiration or termination of this Agreement.
6. MISCELLANEOUS
This Agreement shall automatically terminate if you fail to comply with its terms.
This Agreement is made under and shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, U.S.A., without reference to conflict of laws principles. By using or copying this Licensed Software, You agree to abide by the intellectual property laws and all other applicable laws of the U.S. (including without limitation the export laws of the United States) and the terms of this license.
New features and bug fixes in Cosmo Player 2.0 include the following:
Cosmo Player 2.0 includes:
The Cosmo Player plugin, npcosmop.dll, is installed in Netscape's plugins directory.
The Cosmo Player ActiveX control, cp_axucp.dll, is
installed by default in the Windows system directory, typically
\Windows\System under Windows 95 and \Winnt\System32
under Windows NT.
Other Cosmo Software products may use Cosmo Player as an ActiveX
control to preview VRML work in progress. Microsoft's
Internet Explorer can use the ActiveX control to display VRML data.
All other DLLs required by Cosmo Player are installed by default in the Windows system directory, typically \Windows\System under Windows 95 and \Winnt\System32 under Windows NT.
Cosmo Software has other products that may share dlls with Cosmo Player. These are installed by default in the Windows system directory, typically \Windows\System under Windows 95 and \Winnt\System32 under Windows NT.
One example VRML 2.0 scene is provided with this release. By default it is installed in \Program Files\CosmoSoftware\CosmoPlayer\examples. For additional examples, see the index of example worlds on the Cosmo VRML web site.
Cosmo Player will automatically convert VRML 1.0 files to 2.0 on read. If you prefer to permanently convert your VRML 1.0 files to 2.0, a standalone converter, vrml1tovrml2.exe, is also provided. By default, the converter is installed where the other DLLs are installed.
All data formats can now be gzip compressed. This could make significant improvements in download time for large data files expected to be transferred over slow modem connections.
Cosmo Player will read and convert utf8 characters in a WRL file into Unicode characters to display. This will work on NT4.0 for the string field of the Text node and also the description field of the Viewpoint node. Windows95 does not support Unicode and so will display '-' dash characters instead of the proper value for most charsets but has limited support for Latin1 characters. Of course, you must have the TrueType fonts installed that support the charset that you want to display.
These Release Notes are by default installed in \Program Files\CosmoSoftware\CosmoPlayer\doc\relnotes.html. For the most up-to-date release information, check the Cosmo Software web site.
This release of Cosmo Player has the following minimal supported configuration:
The online Help for Cosmo Player can be obtained by selecting the Help
icon (a question mark) on the Cosmo Player control panel. This will
bring up the installed Help page. You may also view the Help pages
on the cosmo.sgi.com site.
Cosmo Player supports all of the VRML 97 specification. It is compliant with the syntax and semantics of the final version of the specification.
Media (audio, video) functionality is such a big topic that we have
created a separate page for media
features and information.
See also the Trouble Shooting section below.
will be loaded in a Script node in Internet Explorer while the
following will not :
class Foo extends Script {...}
Check the Cosmo Player website for a utility program, oglPanel.exe, which will enable you to easily select which rendering path is used.
Specifically, in the WALK viewer, navigation with the keyboard arrow keys now moves the camera at exactly the speed specified in the current NavigationInfo node. Navigation with the mouse allows some flexibility, but by default the user will not be able to move faster than approximately 3 times the specified speed. (Of course the user can always manually adjust the navigation speed via the Preferences panel.)
Authors should especially be aware that the default "speed" value (from the VRML97 spec) is 1 meter/sec, which is a very slow walking speed in a life-size world! (In other words, if you're building a VRML world using real-world scaling, you should probably use a NavigationInfo node with "speed" set to somewhere between 3 and 5.)
Cosmo Player 2.0 is free, unsupported software. However, if you find bugs, or have other comments about the software, you can report them to the Cosmo Player development team by using the feedback form on the Cosmo Software's Cosmo Player web site or by sending mail to cosmoplayerbugs@sgi.com.
The newsgroup news://vrml.sgi.com/sgi.cosmoplayer is also
available for general questions and discussions on Cosmo Player. Note,
this newsgroup is not a general Usenet group. Use Netscape Navigator or
the MS newsreader to read and post to this newsgroup.
#1. If you are using Windows NT and have a Matrox Millenium graphics driver installed and Cosmo Player hangs on startup, then this is actually a Java-graphics driver problem. Netscape will also hang if you try to view the Java console (without viewing a VRML file). For help, see the URL:
http://help.netscape.com/kb/client/970805-1.html
or get the fix directly from the Microsoft site at
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/usa/NT40/hotfixes-postSP3/getadmin-fix
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#2. If JSAI class files are not being loaded in Internet Explorer, you may want to confirm that your SOCKS server on your firewall is compatible with Internet Explorer. Workaround by using an http proxy to access the internet or by upgrading your SOCKS firewall server.
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#3. We have had reports of EAI content not working in Internet Explorer. In some cases this is due to LiveConnect functionality being used. Please use getBrowser() in your content as that method will work in both Netscape and Internet Explorer.
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#4. If Java functionality is not working, please check your CLASSPATH. If the CLASSPATH environment variable points to any other (non-Cosmo Player 2.0) vrml.* classes, then Java functionality will not be available.
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#5. If embedded vrml runs in various versions of Netscape and in IE 4.0, but won't run in IE 3.x. Ensure that you are using double quotes (NOT single quotes) in your html. That is, it should look like SRC="coolVRML.wrl" not SRC='coolVRML.wrl'.
You can download
the latest version of the software from the Cosmo Software's Cosmo
Player web site.
We have implemented some additional functionality to enable developers to debug their content. This functionality includes:
At runtime, you may toggle (on/off) an in-scene display of frame rate by pressing the character '='.
You may force the display of the console at runtime by pressing the '/' key on the numeric keypad. Pressing '<shift>-/' will hide the console.
Script {
url "javascript:
function initialize() {
print('Script 2 initialized.');
vec = new SFVec2f(0,1);
print('SFVec2f is ('+vec.x+','+vec.y+')');
}"
}
import vrml.external.Browser;
...
Browser.print("Your message here");
or
vrml.external.Browser.print("Your message here");
In the JSAI :
import vrml.Browser;
...
Browser.print("Your message here");
or
vrml.Browser.print("Your message here");
<EMBED SRC="frob.wrl" WIDTH=120 HEIGHT=90 VRML-DASHBOARD=FALSE>
Note that for full page/frame plugins, you must still use an EMBED tag in HTML to get this effect, Specifying the width and height as "100%".