WWWInline; include non-VRML data?

Gavin Bell (gavin@krypton.engr.sgi.com)
Mon, 17 Oct 1994 16:40:14 -0700


What happens when an author specifys a non-VRML URL for a WWWInline?

For example, what happens to this VRML scene:

#VRML V1.0 ascii
Separator {
Cube { }
Translation { translation 3 0 0 }

WWWInline { name "http://www.foo.com/someFile.gif" }
}

There are a couple of possibilities:

1. This is an error. We say that a WWWInline must reference a VRML
file.

2. The WWWInline wraps up other types into 3D objects. For example,
referencing a 2D image could result in a texture-mapped rectangle being
the WWWInline's appearance. A pretty cool feature, but it adds a lot
of implementation burden and supporting all of the common MIME types
would be almost impossible.

3. Behavior is left up to the implementation.

I suggest WWWInline node understand only VRML references, and consider
all other types errors (option 1).