Access to and Encoding of VRML State Information

Mauve, Martin

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URL:	https://ub-madoc.bib.uni-mannheim.de/782
URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-7820
Document Type:	Working paper
Year of publication:	1998
The title of a journal, publication series:	Technical Reports
Volume:	98-013
Place of publication:	Mannheim
Publication language:	English
Institution:	School of Business Informatics and Mathematics > Sonstige - Fakultät für Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsmathematik
MADOC publication series:	Veröffentlichungen der Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik > Institut für Informatik > Technical Reports
Subject:	004 Computer science, internet
Subject headings (SWD):	VRML
Abstract:	In this paper we propose a concept for transparent access of VRML state information. Our approach enhances VRML-browsers to provide additional functionality instead of placing the burden for state access on content developers. The enhanced functionality is realized as an extension to the External Authoring Interface (EAI). Any application which relies on a VRML-browser as 3D presentation engine can use the new EAI functionality to get and set the state of arbitrary VRML content. In order to support diverse applications, the proposed methods not only allow to retrieve the full state of a complete world, but also the state of single objects and state changes. Since the results of state access should be independent of browser implementations, we also specify an encoding for state information. Data in this form is either produced or consumed during state access. For the encoding of state information we use an easy-to-parse and efficient binary encoding.