Q&A With VRML Co-Creator Mark Pesce

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March 23, 1998 (12:00 AM EST)

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By Paul Schindler,

When Mark Pesce and Tony Parisi worked out the foundations of VRML in a San Francisco Coffee House in 1994, it looked as if it was poised to take over the world. Here at least were the seeds of code to build a true, 3-D virtual space.

But after the first year or two of enthusiasm, the language began to disappear from view. In recent months, it's been hard to find any references to the once-promising virtual reality modeling language. Pesce, however, says VRML's not dead -- not even injured -- just biding its time and finding its niche.

He cites plenty of uses for VRML in business applications, in Web animation, and in entertainment, where it is about to be included in the MPEG 4 standard. And, contrary to popular belief, Pesce says, VRML is not a bandwidth hog: When properly optimized, it can actually cut down bandwidth requirements on Web pages.

Pesce came to the CMPnet booth during Internet World Spring '98 in Los Angeles, where he discussed the present and future of VRML with Paul Schindler and Stewart Cheifet.

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What's the status of VRML?

It's funny. It is not getting the hype anymore. This is probably the best thing it ever has. That means it's maturing. For instance, Oracle is releasing an entire tool set for visualization so you can do database mining on it. There are a number of companies ... Computer Associates is using it as the interface engine to the Unicenter database. So, you use VRML to get an overview of all your sites around the world. What it means is that it is no longer hyped as cyberspace; it is becoming a day-to-day multimedia technology for certain types of information exploration, visualization, and entertainment.

"People don't see that it's VRML anymore. ... It is integrated with the Web so it goes away."

People don't see that it's VRML anymore. It is not opening up in a separate window. It is embedded in the HTML. It is working with dynamic HTML. It is integrated with the Web so it goes away. The same way that no one is screaming "Java, Java, Java" anymore, it's just that Java is being used for day-to-day tasks, so the hype has gone away.

How does VRML fit into what Hollywood is trying to do on the Web?

It turns out there is a back door into VRML that no one really knows about yet called MPEG. In January of next year, MPEG 4 will be introduced. Everyone is familiar with MPEG 2; it is used for video. MPEG 4 integrates video, audio, and a 3-D format. The 3-D format MPEG 4 integrates is VRML, which means that in a year or two, every set-top box that is produced will now be VRML-capable. This means you will be able to integrate the 3-D, video, and audio worlds in a very realistic way. This opens up doors to production, presentation, and information that we've never even seen before.

Hollywood is looking at VRML and asking, "What does it mean to actually have a virtual world in addition to our video? How is that meaningful? How does that add to the story? How does that add to our ability to tell a story?" The truth is, no one knows the answer to that yet, but everyone knows it is time to start asking the question.

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