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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) is set up to change the way we interact with the World Wide Web. It is used in conjunction with HTML to create 3-D VR for the true interaction on the Web. Written by a team of VRML experts, this is the most authoritative guide available for creating 3-D virtual worlds on the Internet with VRML. Focusing on step-by-step guidance and inside tricks and tips, this task-oriented guide contains everything you need to make optimum use of this new technology. The VRML Sourcebook explains how to design complex 3-D objects and scenes for your virtual world using VRML; add special lighting, camera angles and professional colour graphics to create extremely realistic worlds that people will want to explore; and link VRML objects to other Web resources. Packed with fascinating and instructive examples, diagrams and screen captures, The VRML Sourcebook is an invaluable technical resource for professional developers and hobbyists alike.

(Extracted form the press release).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Preface.

-Acknowledgments.

-1- Introduction to VRML.

-2- Understanding Key VRML Concepts.

-3- Using Predefined Shapes.

-4- Using Text.

-5- Positioning Shapes.

-6- Rotating Shapes.

-7- Scaling Shapes.

-8- Translating, Rotating, and Scaling Shapes.

-9- Perfoming Custom Shape Transforms (Advanced).

-10- Shading with Materials.

-11- Grouping Nodes.

-12- Instancing Shapes.

-13- Linking in Your Worlds.

-14- Creating Shapes with Faces, Lines, and Points.

-15- Building Materials to Shapes.

-16- Advanced Shading Techniques.

-17- Optimizing How VRML Draws Faces (Advanced).

-18- Mapping Textures.

-19- Lighting Your Worlds (Advanced).

-20- Shading Shapes with Advanced Materials.

-21- Controlling Detail (Advanced).

-22- Using Cameras.

-23- Providing Information about Your Worlds.

-Appendix A: Radians and Degrees.

-Appendix B: RGB Color Table.

-Appendix C: Recommended Resources.

-Appendix D: The VRML Specification.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

Very soon the interactive world of the World Wide Web is going to take a spectacular turn. Once the adaptation stage when anyone was able to build their own page in the Web is overcome, technology has advanced enough so as to let the professionals make their work and dedication be noticed thanks to a whole new range of tools for development and improved languages. In this sense, the VRML language could mean to be the definite revolution which may attract the public in a massive way towards the net, in search for new projections and different ways to relate to the world.

Those who are very keen on the creation of new web pages may therefore congratulate themselves, since the VRML language already is available, the navigators are about to be ready to read them and sufficient help programs have been created so as to put them into practice. A book like this one, which makes the mysteries and the building of virtual worlds available for everybody, may surely become a best-seller. Its text, clear and concise as it is, its broad-mindedness, its respectable extension, the fact that it includes numerous examples and demonstrative exercises, make this into one of the earliest works (if not the first ever) really useful to the average as well as the advanced users. With books like this one more and more pages in 3-D will hopefully begin to appear, a fact that may thus become in a whole brand-new industry by itself with unpredictable consequences.