Encoding of VRML State Information and Transparent Access to it

In this paper we propose a concept of transparent access to VRML state information. Our approach enhances VRML browsers to provide an additional functionality instead of placing the burden of state access on content developers. The enhanced functionality is realized as an extension to the External Authoring Interface (EAI). Any application that relics on a VRML browser as the 3D presentation engine can use the new EAI functionality to get and set the state of arbitrary VRML content. In order to support diverse applications, the proposed methods allow not only retrieval of the full state of a complete world, but also of the state of single objects and state changes. Since the results of state access should be independent of browser implementations. we also specify an encoding for state information. Data in this form are either produced or consumed during the state access. For the encoding of state information we use an efficient, easy to parse binary encoding