VRML - VRML VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language, sometimes pronounced vermal) is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional (3D) interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind. It is a text file format where, e.g., vertices and edges for a 3D polygon can be specified along with the surface color, image-mapped textures, shininess, transparency, and so on. URLs can be associated with graphical components so that a browser might fetch a web-page or a new VRML file from the Internet when the user clicks on the specific graphical component. Animations, sounds, lighting, and other aspects of the virtual world can interact with the user or may be triggered by external events such as timers. A special Script Node allows to add program code.
Virtual reality - reality, as in the simulation of molecules, or in VR games. In practice, it is very difficult to create a convincing virtual reality experience, due largely to limitations on processing power. Virtual reality originally denoted a fully immersive system, although it has since been used to describe systems lacking cybergloves etc., such as VRML on the World Wide Web and occasionally even text-based interactive systems such as MOOs or MUDs. The term virtual reality was possibly coined by Jaron Lanier in 1989. Lanier is one of the pioneers of the field, founding the company VPL Research (from Virtual Programming Languages) which built some of the first systems in the 1980s. The related term artificial reality has been in use since the 1970s and cyberspace dates to 1984. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide").
Daylon Leveller - on a paint-program metaphor similar to Adobe Photoshop, with brushes, selection tools, etc. Textures and water level can be applied also. Heightfields can be planar (flat) or distorted using UV displacment mapping onto spheres, sphere sections, cones, cylinders, etc. Leveller can export scenes to POV-Ray, Renderman, and VRML. It uses plug-ins to handle other file formats and filter processes. Leveller also supports raytracing, animation, and reference shape placement, although these features are secondary to its modeling abilities and were added mainly as prototyping conveniences. Platforms Leveller is available for 32-bit Microsoft Windows. Some related utilities are available for Mac OS X and Linux. References Daylon Graphics: http://www.daylongraphics.com Leveller site: http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller Supported file formats: http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller/tour/index.htm#impexp Development log: http://www.daylongraphics.com/worklog/current/index.htm.
Computer rendering - constants that in effect encode the scene. All 3-D rendering software and hardware produces an approximation to a solution of the idealised rendering equation. Slow movie-creation software typically use more realistic rendering equations than realtime 3D hardware accelerators. Methods of rendering include: the painter's algorithm Ray tracing Global illumination Radiosity Scanline algorithms Z-buffer algorithms Movietype rendering often takes place on a network of tightly connected computers called a render farm. The current state of the art in 3-D image description for movie creation is the RenderMan scene description language designed at Pixar. (compare with simpler 3D fileformats such as VRML or APIs such as OpenGL and DirectX tailored for 3D hardware accelerators). Movie type rendering software includes: PRman POV-ray Mental Ray Blender (which can also be used to produce a scene.
Protein Data Bank - world, is released into the public domain, and can be accessed for free. The structural data can be used to visualize the biomolecules with appropriate software, such as rasmol, chime or a VRML plugin. The PDB website also contains resources for education, structural genomics, and related software. As of 2002, the database contained about 18,000 structures and took in about 2,000-3,000 new ones per year. Data is stored in the mmCIF format specifically developed for the purpose. Note that the database stores information about the exact location of all atoms in a large biomolecule; if one is only interested in sequence data, i.e. the list of amino acids making up a particular protein or the list of nucleotides making up a particular nucleic acid, the much larger databases from Swiss-Prot and.
OpenGL plus plus - offered ease-of-use, and OpenGL Performer which split off from Inventor to deliver a system that re-arranged scene graphs for increased performance. It was later realized that there was no reason the two couldn't be merged, offering both rapid development and high performance. SGI had already released one effort to merge the functionality of these two as Cosmo 3D. When they then started the OGL++ effort, they dropped development of Cosmo3D when it had just reached a beta release, positioning the "front end" package, Cosmo Code, as a VRML authoring tool. OGL++ was essentially a cleaned up and more flexible version of Cosmo, but it is not clear how closely related the two packages are, as OGL++ was never released. Much of the OGL++ effort appears to have been aimed at defining.
Model - biology. Physical models A physical model of something large is usually smaller, and of something very small is larger. A physical model of something that can move, like a vehicle or machine, may be completely static, or have parts that can be moved manually, or be powered. A physical model may show inner parts that are normally not visible. The purpose of a physical model on a smaller scale may be to have a better overview, for testing purposes, as hobby or toy. The purpose of a physical model on a larger scale may be to see the structure of things that are normally too small to see properly or to see at all, for example a model of an insect or of a molecule. A physical model of an animal.
MPEG-4 - web (streaming media) and CD distribution, conversational (videophone) uses, and broadcast television. MPEG-4 absorbs many of the features of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, adding new features such as (extended) VRML support for 3D rendering, object-oriented composite files (including audio, video and VRML objects), support for Digital Rights Management and various types of interactivity. Most of the features included in MPEG-4 are left to individual developers to implement. This means that there are very few complete implementations of the MPEG-4 standard. Anticipating this, the developers added the concept of "Profiles," allowing various capabilities to be grouped together. MPEG-4 consists of several standards—termed "Layers"—as follows. Layer 1 describes synchronization and multiplexing of video and audio. Layer 2 is a compression codec for video signals. Layer 3 is a compression codec for perceptual coding of.
LDraw - specular reflection and cutaway viewing. It runs in Windows. LDView, an OpenGL-accelerated program similar to LDLite, for Windows and Linux. Ldglite, an open-source, OpenGL viewer similar to LDLite, for Windows, Linux, and MacOS. Converting L2P and L3P, two similarly-named but independent programs that convert LDraw files to files that can be rendered with POV-Ray. Both of these programs use Lutz Uhlmann's LGEO library, which contains LDraw parts hand-converted to POV-Ray CSGs for better-looking parts. They run under MS-DOS and Linux. (NOTE: The LGEO library does not use semicolons after #declare statements, so "#version 3.1;" must be added to the beginning of the file to make it render in POV-Ray 3.5) LDraw2LWS is a Windows program that converts LDraw files to Lightwave Objects and Lightwave Scenes. Ld2vr converts LDraw files to VRML..
List of file formats - .jpeg) (lossy, recommended for display of photographic images) PCX PNG (lossless, recommended for display and edition of graphic images) PPM PSD TGA TIFF (.tif or .tiff) (usually lossless, many variant exist including lossy one) Vector image formats CGM Computer Graphics Metafile an ISO Standard DXF SVG Scene description languages (3D vector image formats) MOVIE.BYU RenderMan VRML Object code file formats a.out (Unix and GCC only, not technically a file format) ELF MZ EXE (.exe; used in MS-DOS) PE (.exe; used in Microsoft Windows and some other systems) Page description languages DVI PCL PDF PostScript (.ps, .ps.gz) Hypertext description HTML CSS Data exchange XML SDXF (Structured Data Exchange Format) Tabulated data tab csv (comma separated values) dif (accessible by many spreadsheet applications) Archiving and compression formats arj bzip2 (.bz2) gzip (.gz) LHA.
