-by Kelly Murdock
ActiveVRML is Microsoft's answer to interactive 3D multimedia on the Web. It's a scripting language that enables you to create 3D worlds and 2D cel animations. ActiveVRML is embedded in your Web page as an ActiveX control and is available as part of the Microsoft ActiveX Development Kit.
As part of Microsoft's effort to promote their ActiveX initiative, they made the ActiveX Development Kit available to developers in mid-1996. This kit was a valuable resource that included a lot of information on ActiveX controls, including a complete resource for ActiveVRML.
Included in the ActiveVRML resource section are samples, tutorials,
complete documentation, and release notes. The entire resource
is a series of HTML pages.
| Note |
The ActiveVRML development team at Microsoft is currently developing a new release of ActiveVRML. The beta for this new release should be available in August of 1996. |
The following pages are included in the ActiveVRML resource section of the ActiveX Development Kit:
Reviewing these pages will give you an idea of what's possible with ActiveVRML.
There are several resources on the Web that can help you get a jump start into ActiveVRML. The most important site to check is at
http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/prog/avr/
This is the ActiveVRML site at Microsoft, where the latest news and developments in ActiveVRML are posted.
To understand the differences between VRML 2.0, the Moving Worlds specification, and ActiveVRML, jump over to the following page.
http://reality.sgi.com/employees/gavin/vrml/ActiveVRMLResponse.html
This page gives SGI's response to ActiveVRML. It also includes a comparison list between the two technologies.
There are several good tutorial pages about ActiveVRML found on the Web. One is found at the Folk Arts site:
http://www.folkarts.com/activevrml/guide.html
This site is the Dummy Guide to ActiveVRML. It offers a single example with some good background material.
Another good tutorial is maintained by Vijay Mukhi's Computer Institute hosted on NECA:
http://www.neca.com/~vmis/avrml.htm
This site has many examples in what is probably the best tutorial on ActiveVRML outside of Microsoft.