V-Realm

V-Realm -- V-Realm is a new VRML/HTML combination browser for Windows. In addition to offering extensive Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) capabilities, V-Realm also offers sufficient built-in HTML technology, allowing users to quickly load and view web pages directly from within the browser. In addition to the standalone browser client, V-Realm is also available as a plug-in for Netscape 2.0. While the standalone client's web features are adequate, they are no match for those of Netscape, and the plug-in is therefore likely to be the more popular of the two releases. Features for both versions include full VRML compliance, the ability to read Open Inventor and all VRML files, support for collision detection and texture files, a gravity option, various viewing modes (fly by, walk through, and point to), HTML hotspots, navigational bookmarks (Viewpoints), location indexes, texture filtering, and a whole lot more. Features currently lacking in the releases include VRML editing capabilities, animation, sound and video, and 3-D IRC chatting with avatars. All in all, V-Realm is one of the best apps available for viewing both the 2D HTML worlds and the 3D VRML worlds of the Internet. Pros: Excellent VRML and solid HTML capabilities, can function as a plug-in with Netscape Cons: Lacks VRML editing tools and some of the features found in other VRML browsers New: Revised interface, bug fixes Version Reviewed: 1.1 Beta 1 Date of Review: 7/23/96 apps conference Main Menu