Balance Ball VRML Project

Conclusion

About VRML
VRML is really a powerful language which can be used to create interactive 3D worlds. With a good development tool you can create different shapes in minutes. But as soon as you want to implement animation you should know more about VRML. Most times you can't realize the animation you have in mind without using scripts, this means that programming knowledge is needed too.

Effort
We didn't keep track of the time we spent for this project. The time we spent for learning VRML, writing the analysis of the problem, implement and document it is about 30-40 hours for each of us. This makes a total effort of 90-120 hours for the model.

VRML editors/viewers
Some VRML editors and viewers do not support all nodes. This means, that with some viewers and especially with some development environments you can't use all elements defined by the Web3D consortium. That's quite annoying. We recommend Cosmo Player and Cosmo Worlds since they support most nodes, in fact all nodes we used.

Resources
Cosmo Player
Currently the best VRML viewer plugin. Available for free from Silicon Graphics.

Cosmo Worlds
Intuitive and user friendly VRML authoring tool from Silicon Graphics. Download a free, unrestricted 30-day trial version.

Web3D Consortium
The official webpages containing the VRML97 standard and specifications.


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© 1999 by A. Brand, R. Gressly, R. Jegerlehner