Mike's VRML page

This page is for the VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) models I've built. It's an occasional hobby, so there's just a few models. To view them, you need to have a VRML plug-in for your browser. I've recently switched to Cortona, but many of these were developed to be best viewed using the old Cosmo Player. Cosmo Player hasn't been supported in years, but it remains one of the best VRML viewers. Another option is blaxxun Contact. For more information about VRML and other Web 3D technologies, checkout the Web3D Consortium and Bob Crispen's excellent VRML Works..

	The first is a model of my house. It was build using Cosmo Software's HomeSpace Designer, with a little hand-editing of the resulting VRML file. Walk around it and check it out. The textures were edited from a picture I had of the house. It's the first VRML model I built.
	The second model consists of two 3D surface plots depicting the travel time benefits of ITS. This was hand-coded using data from a study on how to assess the costs and benefits of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) when conducting transportation planning studies.
	The third model is another hand-coded plot. This "cityscape" plot was coded to make it relatively easy to edit the files to create graphs for each metric for each option. The results are from the same study as above, using Mitretek's new "PRUEVIN" methodology for incorporating ITS costs and benefits into regional transportation planning studies.
	The fourth model, Virml Creek, is by far my most ambitious to-date. It is a model of a whitewater slalom run, complete with a kayak that runs the course. A video based on this world won the Digital Motion category at the 1999 National Paddling Film Festival.
	The fifth model, the kitchen, isn't an award winner for VRML design, but it was assembled in about one evening to help select floor and countertop patterns for a kitchen remodeling project. It was done entirely using Cosmo HomeSpace Designer (and some extra scanned textures). Note: HSD has problems with the number of texture coordinates, and I haven't fixed these. It runs fine but with warnings in Cosmo, but I haven't tried other viewers.
	This is a small model of a dorm room in Leete Hall in North Halls at Penn State. It's the only completed part of a project I thought I'd do some years ago to model North Halls. That project's been on hold for some time. Someday I might get back to it.
	Here's the Sunwheel, inspired by the Sunwheel project at the University of Massachusetts. Most of it is really basic, but it's got some animation, animated lighting effects, and sounds in the winter solstice view.
	The latest model, GPS, is one my son and I put together for a 6th grade math project on GPS. The animation shows the signals coming out of 4 GPS satellites, intersecting at a location on the earth. There's a couple of viewpoints to start from.

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Email me at mike.mcgurrin@psualum.com
This page last updated June 20, 2005