VermelGenA Free VRML 2.0 Editor Written in JavaBeta 2Work how you play |
No Longer Actively developed
Written by Justin Couch and Cameron Gillies
VermelGen was started as a project in a book that I wrote with Bernie Roehl called Late Night VRML 2.0 and Java (check out Amazon books for ordering info). It is a book I would heartily recommend to anyone that wants to know some real hardcore things about integrating Java with VRML. This editor was one project. Three of the software products that you will find at this site started with that book (JVerge, VermelGen and VermelTrap). Since then it has taken on a life of its own. Now there are two of us working on it constantly. Since this is not our day job, things don't get done quite so quick as a commercial product, but we hope you agree that the end result is impressive none the less.
Note: We feel that we have released VermelGen a bit too early. There are a number of significant bugs that we should look at. However, we have been caught by a rush of day job work that means we cannot devote the time we would like to it presently. So, in order to avoid prolonging this release anymore (lest it be called Vapourware!) we've released this one. A number of the bugs will be easy to fix, but we don't intend to issue a maintenance release because we are starting the challenge of moving the entire application to Java 1.1 for the next release. Naturally this is going to cause quite some large upheavals to the code.
Most nodes are added or edited using just a dialog box where you fill in the details of the node. The basic philosphy of VermelGen is that you already know VRML 2.0 and just want to get an automated process of generating a scene. Most of the simple nodes follow this pattern. We have included some slightly more advanced editing options as our time permits.
The most noticable of these extras is the PixelTexture Editor. Almost a fully capable PaintBrush style editor, you can create your own customised textures within the editor. Another tool that we are adding in the next release is a graphical Extrusion editor for taking the guesswork out of those complex shapes.
The other to watch out for is the extrusion editor. This graphical editor will allow you to create an extrusion node by pointing and clicking. Once you are done you can then trim the results in the text output before committing it to the scene.
Due to the restrictions placed on Java applets by both major browsers, you are unable to directly write the files to disk. With Netscape Communicator and signed applets you will be able to do this. It is not anything we can fix, you must abide by the browser's rules. However, to overcome this problem in the short term, the scenegraph is printed out to a separate window, allowing you to cut and past the code to an editor like Notepad or Emacs.
If you want to do some window shopping first then have a look at the page of screen shots
If you want to know what browsers this can run with then I suggest you have a look at the compatiblity page for JVerge. I have reports or seen it running on CosmoPlayer (both Irix and Win32 versions), Live3D 2.0 beta 4 and Intervista's WorldView.
Although this is probablly way too early to be thinking about this now, we are open to requests for customised versions of the software. This would be persued as a commercial interest in our view.
The software is available in:
Should this fail with an error message like "cannot find class XXX" then you will need to update your CLASSPATH to include the VermelGen installation directory.