Re: [openvrml-develop] Considering OpenVRML for my project - Some questions

[Braden M. <br...@en...>]

On Mon, 2002-04-08 at 14:18, Reed Hedges wrote:
> Hi, I am looking for a VRML library.  I am probably going to use 
> OpenVRML, but have a few questions.
> Bascially what I want to do is parse a VRML file, and construct an 
> object structure based on that (using my own classes - See link below if 
> you're interested. I actually am thinking of doing two things, one is to 
> create a VOS structure from VRML, the other is a VRML model loader for 
> the Crystal Space 3D engine.).

To do that, it sounds like all you really need is a VRML parser. You
could rip the ANTLR grammar out of OpenVRML and modify it with your own
semantic actions instead of growing your own parser from scratch. But I
don't see an actual dependency on OpenVRML buying you any functionality
to achieve the ends you describe above.

> Eventually I want to support Script 
> nodes (which would affect my object structure).

Aha... Now this is a whole 'nuther ball of wax. What kind of Script node
support are you looking for? If you mean *complete* Script node support,
then you need a whole VRML runtime engine, and OpenVRML definitely fits
the bill there.

> Does it sound like OpenVRML will be useful to me?
> What is the current state of scripting, what is planned? How would I 
> communicate with scripts?

JavaScript is adequate, but incomplete. Check the task list. Java is
there, but nascent. Tom Flynn's been working on it, but I haven't had a
chance to play with it too much.

> Can I build OpenVRML without any OpenGL rendering features and just use 
> it's parsing and scripting features?

Yes.

It would be interesting to see a bridge between OpenVRML and some other
3D runtime system. Such a project would definitely be helpful in
discovering what needs to be exposed in our API.

-- 
Braden McDaniel                           e-mail: <br...@en...>
<http://endoframe.com>                    Jabber: <br...@ja...>