Wave Issue 9701 1/17/96 Article 4-01

***VRML Consortium: Status
by Rikk Carey and David Lohse

Five months after it was announced at last August's SIGGRAPH, the VRML
Consortium is finally taking off. Rikk Carey, the Interim President of
the VRML Consortium, provided an extended response to questions submitted
by the WAVE Report. We have edited these into an article which provides
new information on the state of VRML as an industry initiative.

MEMBERSHIP:

The VRML Consortium has been incorporated in California as a non-profit
organization, which, as of this week, has 42 members (29 charter members,
9 voting members, and 4 non-voting members). The technical working
groups, which do much of the actual work concerning the VRML specs, are
open for anyone to join. Membership costs vary:

Charter: $15,000/year
Voting: $7,500/year
Non-voting: $1,000/year
Working Group: Free

Individual memberships incur a large support structure and costs. The
decision on having such a membership category will wait until a permanent
board is in place.

CHARTER MEMBERS:

3Dlabs, Inc., Apple Computer, Axial Systems, Inc., Black Sun Interactive,
Inc., Construct Internet Design Co., dFORM, Inc., Division Limited, First
Virtual Holdings, Inc., IBM Corporation, Integrated Data Systems, Intel
Corporation, Intervista Software, Inc., Kinetix, Microsoft Corporation,
Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Inc., Netscape Communications
Corporation, OnLive! Technologies, Oracle Corporation, ParaGraph
International, Platinum Technology, Inc., S3, Inc., Samsung Electronics
Co., Ltd., SENSE8 Corporation, Silicon Graphics, Inc., Silver Haze, Sony
Corporation, Superscape, Inc., Template Graphics Software, Inc., Visible
Decisions, Inc.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE:

Board of Directors
|
President
|
+----------------+--------------+
| | |
Technical Review Board Members Executive Director
(VRB) |
| Administration and Marketing
+---------------+----....
| |
Working Working
Group Group

BOARD OF DIRECTORS & VRB:

The elections for the board of directors as well as the VRB (the VAG's
successor) are currently underway. Results will be announced at VRML 97
in Monterey, CA in February.

PRESIDENT:

Although there are 15 board seats, elections are being held for only 14.
The 15th seat, which is reserved for the President, who will be chosen by
the Board members.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

The Executive Director has already been selected: Deepak Kamlani, the
Managing Director of Interprise Ventures. He was instrumental in setting
up the Consortium and has helped to form several other prominent
consortiums. The Executive Director will be responsible for handling the
administrative and operational issues.

GOALS:

After the Consortium has been fully established, it is expected that
their first order of business will be to stabilize the VRML 2.0
specification. Although a slew of VRML 2.0 browsers currently exist,
their performance and support of the floating standard vary considerably.
Mr. Carey's beliefs are that " the major effort will be to stabilize
the 2.0 specification (mostly done), develop conformance tests and an
accreditation service, kick-off technical working groups on a variety of
research topics (multi-user, avatar standards, networking protocols,
scripting languages, database integration, binary file format, external
interface, etc.), and begin a coherent education and marketing program
for VRML."

Further, he expects that the Consortium should concentrate on three major
issues after that:

1. Multi-user capabilities

Of these issues, most in the VRML community will agree that imbuing VRML
with multi-user capabilities is of paramount performance, with many
feeling that VRML isn't even really complete until these features are
added. While several leading companies have developed their own multi-
user solutions for VRML (such as Worlds and Black Sun, to name a few), a
standard solution is conspicuously absent.

2. An external interface (EAI)

The external interface extension to VRML (EAI) has already been voted on
and accepted. In order to be officially ratified, however, a working
group must be created and verify it with at least two implementations as
well as a final review.

3. A binary file format

This also needs to be reviewed by a working group, after which it will be
added to the VRML 2.0 spec, most likely as an addendum.

OPINION:

Rikk Carey also had important views on the future of VRML:

"First, try not to judge VRML by the early demos and hype that you've
seen in the past. The browsers are adolescents that need time to grow up,
but the spec is built on a solid foundation. Expect to be surprised by
how far VRML progresses in 1997. Also, note that we recognize that the
hype around VRML is a double-edged sword. To tell you the truth, its
better to be over-represented than completely ignored. We will endeavor
to set reasonable expectations and present reliable information in the
future.

Second, if you are interested in being active in VRML, just do it.
Consider consortium membership (voting and non-voting), technical working
groups, the www-vrml mailing list and informal discussion as avenues for
your participation.

Third, give the Consortium a chance. Once the elected board and VRB have
had time to gather their wits, then let them have it. ;-) But, at least
give them the benefit of the doubt (so often missing today) and an
opportunity to get elected and make some decisions."

vag.vrml.org