Open Inventor & VRML

1. Platforms, Prices, and Company
• Platforms: SGI (IRIX), Linux, Solaris, Windows NT/2000/XP
• Price: Free (Open Source as of 8/15/2000)
• Company
  • SGI (http://www.sgi.com)
  • Mercury Computer Systems TGS Series (http://www.tgs.com) - PC Version
2. Applications
• Open Inventor has become the de facto standard for development of cross-platform (Windows, UNIX, Linux) 3D graphics applications in C++ and Java. It is a powerful object-oriented toolkit with over 450 classes and an intuitive and easy-to-use programming interface that allows for rapid prototyping and development of graphics applications. OpenInventor also serves as the basis for the VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) standard. It is built on top of OpenGL.
• VRML is a web-based 3D graphics file format. VRML brouser is an animation engine and platform. The first version of VRML, VRML 1.0, came in existence about 1994. Open Inventor ASCII File Format from Silicon Graphics, Inc. as the basis of VRML. VRML 2.0 came into existence on August 4, 1996 when the official VRML 2.0 specification was released at Siggraph 96 in New Orleans. VRML 2.0 became an international standard: VRML97. Extensible 3D (X3D) specification, which is extending VRML97, using the Extensible Markup Lanquage (XML) is a work in progress.
3. Examples/Samples
• http://www.hitl.washington.edu/vrml/gallery
4. Web Resources
• Open Inventor - http://www.sgi.com/products/software/inventor
• Licensing information - http://www.sgi.com/products/software/inventor/licensing.html
• Additional Information - http://www.studierstube.org/openinventor
• Additional Information - http://oss.sgi.com/projects/inventor