VRML documentation

# Summary of Recent Changes:

Current version is 0.5.3 - August 23, 2001

See ChangeLog for details.

Version 0.5.0 to 0.5.3 changes (August 23, 2001):

- new spectrum nodes, texturing nodes, reflector nodes (Neumann brdf, Ashkimin-Shirley), background and environment mapping nodes by Pieter Peers
- experimental texture filtering and path differential support by Frank Suykens
- vrmlview supports texturing and transparency, but remember it is a quick and dirty thing
- minor bug fixes and code clean-ups

Version 0.4 to 0.5.0 changes (February 22, 2001):

- New importer and exporter class concept for importing and exporting a scene graph, to VRML'97 or to other formats. The VRML'97 importer and exporter are part of the core library. Additional import and export filters are in the (new) FILTERS subdirectory. Currently, there are an additional input filter for the ply file format and output filters for mgf and nff. A new "toy" improter and exporter filter with corresponding program in the PROGS directory illustrate the filter concept and usage.
- vrml2mgf program removed and replaced by more general vrmlconv program, that converts any supported input file format to any supported output file format.
- (Incompatible) naming changes:

- the base scene graph library, standard VRML'97 nodes and PhBRML nodes are embedded in a separate namespace called "xrml"
- vrml_ prefix stripped from classes and variables with former name starting with vrml_
- VRML'97 parser split off in separate vrml2_utf8 directory and dito namespace
- The former libvrml library is from now on called libxrml.

- Installation issues:

- All library, node and filter header files are linked to the include main subdirectory. Filters have their header files in subdirectories of include, e.g. include/vrml2_utf8, include/ply, etc...
- Compiled libraries are in the lib main subdirectory, both for the main library as for the filters
- Binaries are linked to the bin main subdirectory
- Shared library support: it is possible to compile all libraries as shared libraries now. Don't forget to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable appropriately to the directory where the libraries are installed.