VRwave 0.9

Interactive 3D Virtual Reality Scene Viewer

Authors
     Keith Andrews (kandrews@iicm.edu): VRwave project leader
     Michael Pichler (mpi@iicm.edu): VRwave X11 lead programmer
Contributed by
     Meredith Whyles (mwhyles@merlyn.net)
     For more information, visit http://www.merlyn.net/.
SCO "Skunkmom" Sponsor
     Ron Record (rr@sco.com)
Obtained from
     ftp://ftp.iicm.edu/pub/VRwave/vrwave-0.9/VRwave-0.9-src.tar.gz
     ftp://ftp.iicm.edu/pub/VRwave/vrwave-0.9/UNIX/Common-VRwave-0.9-Unix.tar.gz
Restrictions
     Refer to the COPYRIGHT and LICENCE files.
Description
     VRwave is a freely available browser for 3D worlds and scenes modeled
     in VRML 2.0 (the latest version of the Virtual Reality Modeling
     Language). It is being developed by the Institute for Information
     Processing and Computer Supported New Media (IICM) of Graz University
     of Technology, Austria, the team who brought you the VRweb VRML 1.0
     browser. Visit http://www.iicm.edu/ for information about the IICM.

     VRwave is the only free VRML browser available in full source code
     which does not require commercial packages such as Inventor or Motif
     and which will run on (almost) any Unix or Windows platform. For more
     information on VRwave, visit http://www.iicm.edu/vrwave . The new name
     VRwave is intended to distinguish the VRML 2.0 browser written largely
     in Java from VRweb, which was written in C++. In terms of look and
     feel, VRwave is a direct successor to VRweb. For more information about
     VRweb, visit http://www.sco.com/skunkware/x11/viewers/ .
Productivity
     This program displays VRML 2.0 files for the user to manipulate. When
     used with a web browser, such as Netscape or Mosaic, this 3D viewer
     allows access to the increasing number of web sites offering virtual
     reality content and to the advanced HyperWave servers (formerly known
     as "Hyper-G"). HyperWave servers represent the next generation web
     solution for publishing rich hypermedia documents in the Internet's
     World Wide Web and internal TCP/IP networks. For more information about
     HyperWave, visit http://www.hyperwave.de/.
Work Planned
     None
Documentation
     Preliminary on-line help for VRwave is included in the archive
     "Common-VRwave-0.9-Unix.tar.gz". For additional information, view the
     VRweb User Guide at http://www.iicm.edu/vrweb/help .
Verification
     Run "vrwave filename &" (or "$VRWAVE_HOME/vrwave filename &"), where
     filename is any VRML 2.0 file. If VRweb (the C++ predecessor of VRwave)
     is executed, it will automatically invoke VRwave when a VRML 2.0 file
     is encountered. Both VRML 1.0 and VRML 2.0 files have a file suffix of
     ".wrl".
Known Limitations
     Currently, VRwave for Unix is unable to process VRML 1.0 files. For
     more information, visit http://hiwaay.net/~crispen/vrml/faq.html#q2.

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How to get the source

Visit http://www.sco.com/skunkware/ or
ftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware/src/x11/viewers to obtain a copy of the source
in gzip format. To create the executable from the source code (on OpenServer
5.0.4), follow these steps:

   * Install the "SVR5 based UnixWare release (codenamed Gemini)" version of
     the Universal Development Kit (UDK) and Java Development Kit 1.1 (JDK).
   * Obtain (or build) and install the UDK version of the Mesa Graphics
     Library (version 2.4), which is available from SCO SkunkWare. Only the
     two primary Mesa libraries (libMesaGL.a and libMesaGLU.a) are required.
   * Use ksh.
   * Ensure that the execution search path includes the directory containing
     the UDK C/C++ compilers (e.g., "/udk/usr/ccs/bin") BEFORE any other
     compiler directories (e.g., "/usr/bin/" for the SCO Development System
     compilers).
   * Execute the command: "export CPU=SCO".
   * Decompress and untar the archive "vrwave-0.9.tar.gz".
   * See file BUILDING for an installation guide.
   * The unbuilt source directory hierarchy requires about 3 Meg, and the
     built hierarchy requires about 5 Meg of disk space. The shared object
     is under 1 Meg.
   * Decompress and untar the archive "Common-VRwave-0.9-Unix.tar.gz".
   * Set environment variable VRWAVE_HOME to the directory which was created
     on unpacking the archive (vrwave-0.9). This directory contains the
     vrwave wrapper script, help, icons, etc.