What's a Good VRML Book?

The absolutely indispensable books everyone needs are the VRML 97 Spec and (if you have to work with VRML 1.0) the VRML 1.0 Spec. The Consortium has PostScript and PDF versions of the VRML 97 spec, and John DeCuir has published the spec as a Windows 9x help file.

You'll also want Jan Hardenbergh's VRML 2.0 Cheat Sheet: all the VRML 2.0 syntax on two sides of a page, PDF or Gzipped PostScript.

If you're doing scripting you'll also need the Java Spec and the JavaScript spec (ECMA-262), and you may also want the Netscape JavaScript spec and the Netscape JavaScript Guide (I know that's the old link, but it points to the new one, and the old link may have more relevant information for a particular browser). If you're interested in working with the External Authoring Interface, you should also get a copy of the EAI Spec.

If you have a reliable net connection, you may want to just save the links to many of these documents instead of copying them down to your system.

Besides the specs, you probably need a textbook or two. There have already been some bad books published that are more fluff than substance, and they're usually in the bookstore right next to the excellent books.

Here's some hints to help you tell the difference:

• Is it a VRML 1 book or a VRML 2/VRML 97 book? If it just says "VRML" and it's a couple of years old, it may be VRML 1. Check the index for Separator (found in VRML 1 but not 2) to be sure. VRML 97/VRML 2 is significantly different from VRML 1, and while you'll learn some things from a 1.0 book that will help you in 97, you'll also learn some things that will temporarily get in the way. It’s your call, but at least make sure you get a book for the version you want to learn.

• Does the book have a lot of comparisons of VRML browsers and modelers? Browsers and modelers change rapidly, and the book is probably already out of date. Worse, those sections are going to be worth less and less as time goes on. A long chapter on navigating in various browsers is a sure sign of padding. You know the "Readme" file that you don't read when you install a browser? It's all in there.

• Does it include a copy of the relevant spec? This may or may not be a good thing. On the one hand it's nice to have the spec under hard covers. On the other hand, if you tear the spec and the sections on browsers and modelers out of some books, there's very little value left. If all you want is the specs, you can download and print them yourself for much less money than you'll spend on a book.

• In the VRML 97 spec a number of nodes and fields are interrelated in a way that takes some study, and the language and organization required for international specs have inevitably produced some truly mind-numbing paragraphs. The spec tells the truth, but it doesn’t always tell it in the way that’s easiest to understand. That’s the job the book’s author has undertaken. Does the author explain the interrelationships, and does she cover the larger themes that make the spec understandable? The 1.0 spec needs even more help. To give a famous example, if a VRML 1.0 browser displays color [ 1 0 0 ] (the numbers stand for amounts of red, green and blue, respectively) as iridescent lavender, the browser is fully spec-compliant! The book’s author needs to go into the things that the spec authors forgot to say.

• Does the book seem to be saying "Wow, isn't this virtual stuff cool?" or does it seem to be saying "Here's what you do, step by step"? A little enthusiasm is probably appropriate, but you aren't paying your money to be pumped up; you're paying to learn something you can use.

• Does the book have examples, examples, examples? Are the examples in some kind of pedagogical order? Do you have to type them in yourself, or is there a CD-ROM or website that has at least the longer examples?

• What’s on the CD-ROM? Sample modelers and browsers are reasonably useful -- you can probably download newer and better versions. Sample textures and models (free of license restrictions) are useful. Examples from the book are most useful of all. A pointer to a well-populated website may be just as good as a CD-ROM or floppy.

• Does the book spend some time talking about textures, viewpoints and color & lighting (three areas where the 1.0 spec is most terse and the 2.0 spec is complete but difficult to understand)?

• In every technical field there are books that reflect the understanding of masters in their field, and there are books that are nothing more than a rehash of the manuals and specs, illustrated with pretty pictures and put under glossy covers. If you’ve bought enough of the latter, you develop a sense of smell for these things. What does your nose tell you about this book?

Some VRML Books

The first place to start is the VRML Repository’s list of books. The list is fairly up to date, but there are a few books missing, so you might want to check some of the VRML sites for announcements of new books.

Here are some VRML books I own (and paid for), with a couple of comments. The presence or absence of a picture denotes nothing more than my ability to find a picture of reasonable size. Warning: anyone who thinks that I've named all the good VRML books, or that my opinion of them is gospel, I've got some real estate I'd like to interest you in.

VRML: Browsing & Building Cyberspace by Mark Pesce (1995) New Riders. ISBN 1-56205-498-8. US$40.00. 424 pp. CD-ROM. Includes 1.0 Spec. This is pretty much the standard VRML 1 book. It's a little bit padded (e.g., several pages on how to use browsers that don't exist any more, philosophical talk on cyberspace), but it gets the basics down, and the examples elevate it above most of the rest of the VRML 1 books. Best used by: beginners who must build VRML 1 worlds or hack VRML 1 code.

The VRML 2.0 Handbook: Building Moving Worlds on the Web by Jed Hartman and Josie Wernecke (1996) Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-47944-3. US$29.95. 412 pp. Includes 2.0 spec. While there's no CD-ROM, there's a well-stocked website that has all the examples from the book plus the magnificent Tenochtitlan world. This is by far the best beginners' VRML 2.0 book. It's pretty light on its coverage of Scripts and PROTOs, but it explains ROUTEs and the other nodes and includes very clear descriptions of the most confusing nodes and fields. I started off not knowing any VRML 2, but having done quite a bit of Inventor and VRML 1, and after a morning reading the book and running the examples, I was writing VRML 2 with confidence. Best used by: beginners -- but the section on making VRML worlds small and fast should be read by everybody.

Teach Yourself VRML 2 in 21 Days by Chris Marrin and Bruce Campbell (1997) Sams.net. ISBN 1-57521-193-9. US$39.99. 479 pp. CD-ROM. Excellent, clear explanations. Starts with basics and goes through Scripts and PROTOs. Minor quibble: introduces scene graph notation in an early chapter, but we never see it again. My test of a VRML 2 book, now that I've written a bunch of VRML 2, is whether it tells me anything I didn't know; this book is full of such gems. Best used by: beginners through intermediate.

VRML 2.0 Sourcebook by Andrea L. Ames, David R. Nadeau and John L. Moreland (1997) John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-16507-7. US$49.95. 654 pp. CD-ROM. No fluff here, despite its size. And again full of little tidbits I didn't know or understood poorly (or incorrectly). This book is best approached by heading to the chapters that cover topics you're interested in; you won't lose anything by skipping around since each section is self-contained. The book’s website has the examples online. Best used by: beginners through intermediate.

Java for 3D and VRML Worlds by Rodger Lea, Kouichi Matsuda and Ken Miyashita (1996) New Riders. ISBN 1-56205-689-1. US$45.00. 399 pp. CD-ROM. You have to know both VRML and Java to get the most from this book, though Appendix A has as good an exposition of VRML as I've ever seen. Advanced VRML 2 builders tend (like I do) to hack away and see what happens rather than studying, so I fear for the sales of this book (better get it quick). If you can spend a few hours reading this book, you'll save at least twice as many hours of confusion. The examples are all geared toward the Sony Community Place browser (included) but readers should have little trouble making it work in other environments. Best used by: advanced.

Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java by Bernie Roehl, Justin Couch, Cindy Reed-Ballreich, Tim Rohaly, and Geoff Brown (1997) ZD Press. ISBN 1-56276-504-3. US$44.99. 710pp. CD-ROM. [errata] Imagine you could get some of the leading lights of www-vrml to let you into their workshops to see what they're working on that isn't released to the public yet. Suppose you just found out about VRML and wanted to jump into www-vrml or some of the working group lists and understand what people were talking about there. This enormous book does both, and marks the "beyond this point there be dragons" leading edge of the VRML movement. Despite its timeliness, there are tutorials on textures (Cindy's marvelous texture tutorial is finally between covers, and it's a lot easier to find things), 3D sounds, Java, multiuser principles and PROTOs that will be of enduring value once the leading edge has become old hat. The CD-ROM is a knockout. Instead of the obligatory 10 demo versions of modelers, it's full of experiments and code that you'll steal to build your own "how'd they do that?" VRML effects along with tools for late night play. Although the internal consistency is skimpy at best, and the book and CD-ROM are, when you get down to it, just a big pile of stuff, it's a big pile of extremely cool stuff, meticulously explained by masters. Best used by: intermediate to advanced.

The Annotated VRML 2.0 Reference Manual by Rikk Carey and Gavin Bell (1997) Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-41974-2. US$39.95. 504pp. CD-ROM. OK, who are these guys anyway? Geez, everybody's getting on the VRML bandwagon. For those of you who don't realize that the words that show up most often on this site and other VRML sites are "Bell" and "Carey", that was a joke. These are the guys and this is the word. If you want to know the way it is, why it is the way it is, and how to use the way it is, this is the book. You might want to find a small 3-ring binder, tear out the pages, and get yourself a box of page reinforcers; you're going to use this book a lot. The CD-ROM contains the contents of the book, which isn't that much of a disappointment, since the book is chock full of examples. The website has the complete text of the book, and is worth visiting to check on last-minute errata and changes. For example, the change to the NavigationInfo.type default didn't make it into the book, but got onto the website, as did the deletion of the paragraph about required JavaScript Math.xxx methods. A note on the tone: Carey and Bell avoid hype almost to the point of clinical depression; they seem to say in the introduction that VRML isn’t what we hoped for, but it was the best we could do. The truth is, as I’ve discovered from arguing with these folks over some changes in minutiae I was suggesting, they’re fiercely proud of VRML. As the keeper of the comp.lang.vrml FAQ and a frequent reader of the newsgroup, I'd be a lot happier if everybody had this book. Best used by: beginners through advanced.

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace by Janet H. Murray (1997) Free Press. ISBN 0-684-82723-9. US$25.00. 324pp. So you want to put a VRML world on the net that's more than just geometry; you want to build hypertext that's more than just a prosaic list of links or a poor verbal substitute for a site map; you recognize that chat, even when people are role-playing, doesn't go anywhere; you believe that narrative on the net can be considerably more than TV, but you don't know what to do next? Congratulations, you're now standing on the real cutting edge: constructing narrative and meaning on and through the net. Murray's book is the manual for this next step in the net's evolution. Though it contains almost nothing you can grab right away and plug into your VRML world (and the book doesn't even mention the 4 initials) it's jammed full of ideas and insights and references to people and projects that have solved some of the problems you're going to have. For a book about the net, it's a little odd that URLs are almost completely absent (the website for the book makes up for this), but the names of people and projects should be enough to get you to the web resources, and the references on dead trees are plentiful. Hamlet on the Holodeck is designed for a general audience and avoids the techspeak of both the computer and literature (and linguistics which makes a fascinating but tantalizing appearance here). It's off to the references for me now, but Murray's book seems to be an eye-opening introduction. It's good to know we're not alone and that people have been working on these problems. Best used by: intermediate through advanced.

Networked Virtual Environments - Design and Implementation by Sandeep Singhal and Michael Zyda (1999) ACM Press (publication date, price, ISBN TBD). This forthcoming book, which should be out by SIGGRAPH 1999, is by the acknowledged masters of the field: the folks at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Did I make any factual errors about these books?Let me know.