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Given by Krzysztof Walczak at Rome Lab Quarterly Review for CIV on June 28 96. Foils prepared 23 February 97
Outside Index
Summary of Material
| Open Inventor Viewer for Terrain Data |
| Open Inventor vs. VRML |
| Geographical Information Systems -- GIS in VRML |
| Actual Viewer Implemented for Terrain Data |
Denote Foils where Image Critical
Denote Foils where HTML is sufficient
Open Inventor Viewer for Terrain Data
Open Inventor vs. VRML
GIS in VRML
Viewer for Terrain Data
Viewer for Terrain Data
Viewer for Terrain Data
Outside Index
Summary of Material
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared 23 February 97 
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| Krzysztof Walczak |
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared 23 February 97
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| VRML is an ASCII description of the contents of three-dimensional virtual worlds |
| VRML has to be read into a browser to be displayed |
| VRML is based on Open Inventor ASCII file format |
| Open Inventor is a programming environment which enable displaying and manipulation of three -dimensional virtual worlds |
| This environment provides an API that allows writing any user-application in C++ or C |
| Open Inventor uses ASCII file format for exchange of description of the virtual worlds contents among applications |
| New Open Inventor 2.1 accepts VRML 1.0 syntax |
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared 23 February 97
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| VRML as a language is sufficient for modeling of 3D data in GIS applications, however: |
| Modeling terrain in VRML produces enormous data sets, very difficult to maintain and transfer over the World-Wide Web |
The functionality offered by general-purpose browsers is not satisfying:
|
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared 23 February 97
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| Solution: |
| Instead of using general purpose VRML browsers, we build a specialized browser for terrain data |
| Open Inventor library is used for three-dimensional visualization |
| The browser is extensible and allows introduction of additional functionality |
The syntax of VRML may be extended to achieve certain desirable results:
|
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| Advantages |
| Efficient compression may be used to reduce the size of binary data volume (k x 100 times less data describing terrain needs to be sent) |
| User may control desired level of details in generated VRML representation |
Extra functionality:
|
HTML version of Basic Foils prepared 23 February 97 
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| VRML |
| ASCII |
| read-in |
| Open |
| Inventor |
| Display |
| Engine |
| Binary |
| Data |
| read-in |
| WWW |
| Server |
| VRML |
| Data |
| Binary |
| Terrain |
| Data |
| Scene |
| Graph |
| User |
| display |
| control |
| Extended |
| VRML |
| Other |
| Application |
| Other |
| Application |
| Architecture |