VRML 3D-visualisation with xtal-3d for WWW

3D crystal structures in VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) may be generated from a variety of standard crystallographic formats using xtal-3d an application developed at ILL by Marcus Hewat using the CCSL Cambridge Crystallographic Subroutine Library (P.J. Brown and J. Matthewman). They can be viewed and manipulated in 3D on all types of computer using a VRML viewer. VRML is therefore an ideal cross-platform format for visualising 3D crystal stuctures.

After setting up, visualise these 3D crystal structures with VRML

VRML viewers are suitable for various computer platforms

Netscape V3 for Windows and Macintosh will automatically recognise and display VRML files using its live3D plugin, which is installed with the standard Netscape-3. Note that you do not have to install xtal-3d, which is used to generate the VRML files on our WWW server, but you will find it useful for treating your own data.

Hewlett-Packard have their own VRML Model Viewer. An excellent free viewer for all platforms (UNIX, PC and soon Macintosh) is VRweb from the University of Graz (Austria) using the Mesa openGL 'clone'. VRweb will display in 3D even on X-terminals !

VRML originated from Silicon Graphics'Inventor format, and the SGI VRML viewer WebSpace can be downloaded from USA or Europe. Webspace interfaces to the SGI version of Netscape from USA or Europe . Since VRML is a subset of SGI Inventor, you can also use the latest version of the SGI Inventor viewer (ivview) which is automatically downloaded with WebSpace.

The very latest VRML viewer for SGI and MS-Windows is SGI's Cosmoplayer plug-in, which on a PC is as fast as Netscape's live3D, with the superior rendering quality of VRweb. It is also the first viewer to support the VRML-2 standard (which is not yet needed by xtal-3d).

Complete information about VRML viewers can be obtained from the VRML repository.

How to set up to make life easy on Unix computors

You must add the following to your Unix .mailcap and .mime.types files if you want Netscape to automatically open your viewer when it encounters a VRML file. (You can do the equivalent for Macintosh and Windows in the menu set-up) :

  • To .mime.types add:
    type=x-world/x-vrml exts=wrl,vrml

  • To .mailcap add something like:
    x-world/x-vrml; webspace -remote %s -URL %u ; description="VRML document"

  • Or on SGI you may use the Inventor 2.1 Viewer by adding instead something like:
    x-world/x-vrml; ivview %s ; description="VRML document"

    Please email me at hewat@ill.fr if you have any comments. Feedback is always welcome !