Working with remote VRML scenes through low-bandwidth connections

Abstract

We have developed a Web based application to accelerate the visualization of VRML scenes located in a remote server. This application enables the user to extract only the parts of a scene that are of actual interest. The extracted parts represent one or more sub trees of the hierarchical structure of the VRML scene, and only these parts will be rendered and visualized in the local computer. By reducing the complexity (size) of the remote scene, less data are transmitted from the remote server and the rendering process becomes faster in the local computer. The application is written in Java and is executed as an applet embedded in an HTML page.