Examples

One of my favorite ways of learning is to see how other people do it. Nothing beats a working example. Most of these examples are pretty well annotated. I've also got a huge list of worlds, and there's plenty of material to learn from there, too. Many of these examples are PROTOs or EXTERNPROTOs, so they're easy to reuse. If you find a world that comes up and looks black, look nearby for an example, or read the source so you can see how to use it.

The PROTO Repository, by VRML hero Mark Pflagling. Go there first if you're looking for a creative effect, and if you're a world builder who's come up with something useful and reusable, get your PROTOs into the Repository.

• Cindy Ballreich's moving avatar at 3Name3D
• Gavin Bell and Rikk Carey's SmoothMove PROTO
• Graeme Bennett's Model Shop
• Vladimir Bulatov's PROTOs -- he isn't publicizing them much, but they're outrageously cool
• Liam Birtles' examples at NVRCAD
• David Brown's Descent demo uses keyboard inputs through the EAI
• Don Brutzman's examples at the Naval Postgraduate School
• Don Casteel's example of animating the points in an IndexedFaceSet
• My examples:
  • Using a script to reflect an object (similar to the VRML 1.0 scale -1 1 1)
  • Moving and binding a Viewpoint to take a guided tour
  • Morphing an object using a CoordinateInterpolator
  • Swapping images like a slideshow with a Switch node
  • Modifying the start_time and stop_time fields to pause and restart a moving object
  • Putting a texture on one face of an object (also shows a use of TextureCoordinate)
  • A pushbutton that moves, then loads a page in a different window
  • VRML Toys (rotation toy, viewpoint toy, color toy, lighting toy, color & lighting toy) let you adjust the parameters of some of the VRML nodes and see the results in your own browser. Make sure you see the PROTOs used in these worlds.
  • Geodesic domes, based on Vladimir Bulatov's dome PROTO, and wireframe utility
• John Cross's examples for his book Web Support for 3D Graphics Using VRML
• Kamil Dabkowski's wall with window/door PROTO
• Len Daly's PROTOs and examples
• Helmut Dersch's spherical VRML panoramas
• Alligator Descartes' examples
• EM7's ProtoPac has 48 free business-oriented EXTERNPROTOs
• Eric Haines' Pellucid is a Java applet that shows how various values for color and lighting parameters affect the appearance of an object. Since this is a "perfect" implementation of the VRML color and lighting model, this is the standard that VRML browsers are trying to approach.
• Jan Hardenbergh's Athortoy shows sensors and scripts authoring a world before your eyes
• Jed Hartman's VRML Tidbits
• Institute for Information Processing and Computer Supported New Media (IICM) models
• Jim Johnson's VCR-style controls for VRML
• Tom Kaye's VRML resources includes examples of motion trail and tracking camera
• Ever want to put a cylinder or extruded beam between point A and point B? See Robert Lipman's PROTOs, and don't overlook his VCR Controls
• Hartmut Luttermann's VRML history proposal -- includes an implementation that allows animations to be paused, rewound, and restarted from arbitrary points.
• Chris Marrin's EAI Examples
• Braden McDaniel's PROTO collection includes a VCR control and a CircleExtrusion
• Dennis McKenzie's example of stereo viewing (use two empty toilet paper rolls over your eyes like binoculars). There was quite a discussion on this topic on www-vrml. Michael Wagner contributed an example (instructions: "cross your eyes") as did Vladimir Bulatov and Christopher Lane (use 3D glasses)
• Niclas Olofsson's worlds -- look for his PROTOs
• Narcis Pares' elevator
• Mr. Phillip's paintable Easter eggs
• Martin Reddy's QuadLOD and VisibilityInline nodes -- for visualizing large data sets
• Greg Seidman's VRML Widgets including a time chaining PROTO and a VCR control
• Todd Shafer's examples
• Roland Smeenk's worlds and examples and PROTOs including gradients and lens flare
• James Sørlie's examples
• Kouki Takahashi's VRML examples
• Toyo Information Systems' CyberWalker examples
• The VRML Consortium's VRML Gems
• The VRML Consortium Widgets Working Group examples and resources
• Qiming Wang and Sandy Ressler's VRML kinematics examples at NIST
• Joe Williams' brilliant illustration of shiny surfaces in VRML

Here are some other places to look for examples:

• The VRML 97 spec, which has the definitive examples
• The comp.lang.vrml FAQ where there are a number of examples that were built to answer world builders' questions
• Most of the tutorials we've listed have examples to illustrate their points
• VRML books are generally full of examples, and sometimes their websites have additional examples
• Our list of VRML worlds

Did I leave out a good example? Let me know.