应用Cult3D技术实现交互式三维人脸动画

介绍一种新的Web3D实现技术Cult3D，对比了其与VRML在实现网络三维图形技术上的优越性，着重论述了如何使用Cult3D技术并结合照片建模工具实现网络环境下的交互式三维人脸动画。     

The role of computer graphics and visualization in the GII

However captivating and encouraging its potential, the global information infrastructure (GII) has a long way to go before reaching full effectiveness. The GII must address real user needs and capabilities rather than developers' opinions on them. Otherwise, this information universe will become a cemetery, a massive burial site for an infinitely large amount of data and information. Visualization and computer graphics can play a central role in helping the GII meet its challenges. This report discusses how to use graphics and visualization technologies to do just that. We chose the topics for this report to represent some key challenges in interacting with structured and unstructured information distributed over the GII. The authors offer practical approaches to improving user interaction with the GII, especially the World Wide Web. Computer graphics and visualization provide effective tools for tackling the problems     

“Bottom, thou art translated”: the making of VRML Dream

Bringing virtual theater to the Web requires 3D graphics, efficient networking, and strong content. We discuss the VRML Dream Project, a real time Internet performance. In the late summer of 1997, the authors sat in a pub in Toronto, Canada, and began planning an ambitious project: to create a new entertainment medium. The idea was to mount a live performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and “broadcast” it over the Internet. The sets, props, and all the characters were to be modeled using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) 2.0. A group of actors would provide the voices, and puppeteers would control the characters. Both the voices and the motion data would be digitized, compressed, and sent out over the Internet in real time. Moreover, people would be able to access this broadcast with a 28.8-Kbps modem connection and a 150-MHz Pentium computer. Less than six months later, VRML Dream made Internet history (D. Coco, 1998). VRML Dream was the first live, streaming, VRML entertainment project with a running time of more than two or three minutes, and it proved that streaming both motion and voice data over standard Internet connections was possible. The article looks at the development of the project, its models and technology, and the main issues that influenced the final design. It also examines the technology needed to create live, streaming, real time 3D animation for the Internet as well as some of the challenges that lie ahead     

VRML在三维动态交互地图可视化中的实践

针对三维动态交互地图的可视化问题,探讨了VRML的技术特点及其在解决三维动态交互地图可视化问题中的应用潜力和存在的问题,并采用Visual C^ 与VRML 2．0相结合进行了三维动态交互地图可视化的初步实践,取得了成功的应用。该工作主要集中在：（1）通过北京门头沟地区地形的可视化,探索了VRML表达较大数据量数字地形的能力;（2）开发了三维动态交互地图可视化的原型系统,并在北京人口变化可视化中进行了应用。     

用VRML和Java实现虚拟小区的交互漫游

为了实现虚拟小区的交互漫游,在系统实现过程中采用了几种方式的交互技术,文中对这些交互技术进行了讨论和实现。阐述了在虚拟小区中交互漫游的两种方式,即由用户交互控制视点和由计算机自动控制视点的方式,并对这两种交互漫游方式给出了VRML编码的具体实现;最后采用外部编程接口（EAI）实现了用户界面中的二维平面图和三维场景图的交互。     

VRML testing: making VRML worlds look the same everywhere

NIST tools address problems posed by testing 3D graphics. The article explains the test development strategy and design issues in developing and delivering these testing tools. In 1996, NIST staff met with interested members of the VRML community to discuss various approaches to testing the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) specification. The standard defines requirements for creating VRML worlds, tools that generate VRML worlds (authoring tools), and tools that interpret and properly render VRML worlds (browsers). It was agreed that VRML worlds, whether generated by hand or through an authoring tool, must be fully compliant with the standard. Furthermore, they must be viewable and reasonably similar in a variety of VRML browsers, regardless of the underlying hardware and software platforms. Consequently, NIST developed metrology tools to support testing VRML content, authoring tools, and browsers. VRML content and the associated authoring tools are tested using a locally developed reference parser, Viper. VRML browsers are tested using a test suite of conformant files, called the VRML Test Suite (VTS). The VTS tests the VRML built-in nodes, VRML extensible components, and base execution model. Finally, the true dynamic nature of VRML is tested using automatic test generation techniques built through extension of the Viper source code. We also address using the Web as a vehicle for delivering these metrology tools     

GeoVR: a web-based tool for virtual reality presentation from 2D GIS data

A tool called GeoVR has been designed and developed under a client/server architecture to enable the interactive creation of a 3D scene and virtual reality modeling language (VRML) model from 2D spatial data by integrating Internet geographical information system (GIS) and HTML programming. The client front-end of this tool provides an HTML form to set properties for building 3D scenes, while the server back-end supported by off-the-shelf software: ArcView Internet Map Server and ArcView 3D Analyst through Avenue programming, processes the parameters and generates a 3D scene. This 3D scene is then transformed into a VRML model, which, together with its legend, is sent back to the VRML-enabled WWW browser for display and navigation. It is demonstrated that this tool, not only automates the conversion of the conventional 2D GIS data into VRML, but also adapts the current GIS 3D capabilities to the increasingly popular Web environment. The development of GeoVR offers new opportunities for geoscientists to build applications that benefit from virtual reality presentation based upon the existing GIS spatial databases.     

基于X3D的动态交互式虚拟社区技术研究

三维虚拟社区具有强大的功能和广泛的商业价值,是虚拟现实技术的应用之一。X3D是新一代互联网3D图形规范,为构建基于Web的3D应用提供了解决方案。本文从虚拟场景建模、动态交互的实现技术和虚拟场景优化三个方面讨论基于X3D构建动态交互式虚拟社区的技术。     

VRML adds a new dimension to Web browsing

One of the most exciting developments on the World Wide Web is the emergence of the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). While true cyberspace is quite a few years in the future, VRML (often pronounced `vermal') does offer some tantalizing previews of what is to come. VRML is away of compactly describing 3D objects and scenes, based on Silicon Graphics' Open Inventor file format. It lets authors embed links in and apply textures to objects. Authors can also set the levels of detail displayed to approximate real life, where objects in the distance seem less detailed than closer objects. VRML files can be smaller than fully rendered worlds because the format merely specifies what the client machine should render. In other words, your machine receives the VRML instructions, then renders the scene itself. The speed of your machine's graphics capabilities can sometimes have as much influence as the speed of your Internet connection on how long you wait to view files. The type of computer you have will also affect the quality of the graphics     

Federated search of scientific literature

The Internet of the 21st Century will radically transform how we interact with knowledge. The rise of the World Wide Web and the information infrastructure have rapidly developed the technologies of collections for independent communities. In the future, online information will be dominated by small collections. The information infrastructure must similarly be radically different to support indexing of community collections and searching across such small collections. Users will consider themselves to be navigating in the Interspace, across logical spaces of semantic indexes, rather than in the Internet, across physical networks of computer servers. The digital libraries initiative (DLI) project at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) was one of six sponsored by the NSF, DARPA, and NASA from 1994 through 1998. The goal was to develop widely usable Web technology to effectively search technical documents on the Internet. This article details their efforts     

Mobile augmented reality for environmental monitoring

In response to dramatic changes in the environment, and supported by advances in wireless networking, pervasive sensor networks have become a common tool for environmental monitoring. However, tools for on-site visualization and interactive exploration of environmental data are still inadequate for domain experts. Current solutions are generally limited to tabular data, basic 2D plots, or standard 2D GIS tools designed for the desktop and not adapted to mobile use. In this paper, we introduce a novel augmented reality platform for 3D mobile visualization of environmental data. Following a user-centered design approach, we analyze processes, tasks, and requirements of on-site visualization tools for environmental experts. We present our multilayer infrastructure and the mobile augmented reality platform that leverages visualization of georeferenced sensor measurement and simulation data in a seamless integrated view of the environment.     

Web中药信息检索系统

介绍了Ｗｅｂ中药信息检索系统的开发平台,体系结构以及实现本系统的相关技术。其中,ＩＳＡＰＩ技术具有比ＣＧＩ更好的性质,ＶＲＭＬ技术解决了３Ｄ化学结构在Ｗｅｂ上的传输和显示,ＪａｖａＳｃｒｉｐｔ技术实现了客户端创建另一浏览器窗口以显示３Ｄ化学结构。结果证明,这些技术适于解决文本和化学信息在Ｗｅｂ上的发布。     

Large-scale mine visualization using VRML

Traditionally, mine plans and sections in 2D stored 3D information. We show that using VRML to model this information leads to new, interactive methods of data visualization. With the demise of the last working tin mine in Cornwall (South Crofty), perhaps the end has arrived for a way of life that saw the rise of Cornish miners and the engineering know-how they brought to the world. Using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is the latest in a series of attempts to view the complex arrangement of tunnels and stopes at South Crofty. VRML has many advantages, especially in rendering speed, ease of creating geometry, and the added bonus of Internet capability. This permits viewing interactive mine models by almost any interested party at almost any location if they have an Internet connection and can access a location where the model is stored. To construct a 3D model, we must first obtain coordinate information. In the case of South Crofty, this information came from three sources: electronic digital data, paper plans and miscellaneous plans and reports. Because the South Crofty survey department used a commercial mine survey package called Surpac, we used that format ourselves. Once all the information was in Surpac format, relatively painless editing could take place within Surpac using a graphical editor. Next, we used a conversion utility written in Java to convert the coordinate data into a suitable VRML format     

基于网络的交互式虚拟展示技术研究

针对目前数字化产品的网络展示特点,提出用一种比VRML更加优越的新的Web3D实现技术——Cult3D技术来实现基于网络产品的三维虚拟动态模拟与展示,并对数字化模型构建、交互式动态展示等关键问题进行了研究。经实际应用证明,可有效地提高数字化产品的信息传达效果,为新产品开发提供一种新的互动设计模式,进而提高设计的竞争力。     

Subdivision methods of converting STEP into VRML on Web

A typical product development team working in global manufacturing and marketing environment is often dispersed all over the world. Such a team may need a tool to aid effective communication and cooperation among the work groups. A 3 dimensional STEP geometry browsing system has been developed on the Internet and its associated Web. A major issue in implementing the system is the efficiency of computation and communication time of 3D visualization models. An adaptive subdivision method is developed to convert STEP data into a VRML visualization model. The method has been implemented and experimented, and the results show a substantial improvement in computational performance.     

Nanyang Technological University virtual campus [virtual reality project]

The idea for building a VR model of the NTU campus came about six years ago when the School of Computer Engineering purchased a powerful graphics workstation with advanced modeling software systems, MultiGen-Paradigm's MultiGen and Vega. Three-dimensional Web visualization developed rapidly. Personal computers became capable of making VR walkthroughs even in shared virtual worlds. Cybertown created by Tony Rockliff and Pascal Baudar with Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) on the Blaxxun Platform, inspired us to put our virtual campus on the Web.     

Using the Semantic Web technologies in virtual engineering tools to create extensible interfaces

Ideas and tools developed for the Semantic Web can also be applied to and integrated with engineering tools and software. The ideas upon which the Semantic Web are founded, along with the technologies that are used to implement it, provide a platform on which virtual engineering tools and interfaces can be extended to create a web in which contextual information is readily accessible to engineers. When the Semantic Web and virtual engineering methods are fully realized, computer hardware and networking capabilities will work to provide information and tools to access information meaningfully. The question that must be answered today is: how will information be integrated in a manner that will allow commercial and proprietary software tools to remain separate while also being integrated so that the end user can control and query these tools with little to no knowledge of the tools’ implementation or inner-working details? The answer to this question will depend largely on the ability to implement open interfaces and schemas that can evolve over time as well as open source toolkits that enable development teams to collaborate at a high level. This paper discusses potential applications of the Semantic Web to explore these questions. In addition, specific capabilities being developed in VE-Suite are discussed.     

NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is preparing a Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF) to provide useful data about special functions for a wide audience. The initial products will be a published handbook and companion Web site, both scheduled for completion in 2003. More than 50 mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists from around the world are participating in the work. The data to be covered include mathematical formulas, graphs, references, methods of computation, and links to software. Special features of the Web site include 3D interactive graphics and an equation search capability. The information technology tools that are being used are, of necessity, ones that are widely available now, even though better tools are in active development. For example, LaTeX files are being used as the common source for both the handbook and the Web site. This is the technology of choice for presentation of mathematics in print but it is not well suited to equation search, for example, or for input to computer algebra systems. These and other problems, and some partially successful work-arounds, are discussed in this paper and in the companion paper by Miller and Youssef.     

Research on Enhancing the Functions of Animation in Web 3D

VRML offers powerful tool for generating 3D scene and realizing real time interactive animation on Web. This paper briefly introduces the related techniques of implementing interactive animation in Web 3D, focusing on how to use JavaScript to create Script node for extending VRML functions. This is very useful for virtual product design, product performance simulation, virtual assembly and remote education.