Building 3D Models for the Web Publishing Ray Dream 3D Scenes as VRML

Follow these steps to convert your Ray Dream 3D scenes to VRML and publish them on the Web. The process is similar for other 3D modeling packages.

| Saving as VRML | Publishing to the Web | Giving public access |

Saving Ray Dream 3D Scenes in VRML Format

1. Open your scene in Ray Dream 3D
2. Under the File menu, select Save As. This will open a dialog box similar to the one illustrated at the near right.
3. At the bottom of the Save dialog box, in the Format field, select VRML 2.0.
4. Click on the Options button. This will open a dialog box similar to the one illustrated at the far right.
5. The various options are described in Appendix A of the Ray Dream 3D manual. In most cases you can accept the default values, except possibly "Levels of detail" and "Tessellate".
6. Click on OK to close the options dialog box.
7. Select the folder where you want to save the VRML file and all of the texture maps. You can create a new folder by clicking on the New button.
8. Click on OK to start the translation. This may take a few minutes if you have a complex scene.
9. You may now quit Ray Dream 3D.

Publishing Files on the Web Server

1. Select "IUP Vax" under the Apple menu.
2. Ignore the window that prompts for your VMS username or press Control-z to cancel it.
3. Under the File menu, select Open Connection.
4. In the Session Name field, enter the name of one of the SGIs, cheetah.ma.iup.edu, jaguar.ma.iup.edu, or leopard.ma.iup.edu. It doesn't matter which one you log into because they all share the same Web directories.
5. Click on OK.
6. Enter your SGI username and password.
7. Use the cd commmand to go to the directory on the SGI server where you want to publish your VRML world. For example,

         jaguar 1% cd public_html
   

   or

         jaguar 1% cd /var/www/htdocs/courses/ls499/steel
   

8. Under the File menu, select FTP Enable.
9. Under the File menu, select Set Transfer Directory.
10. Select the Macintosh directory that contains your VRML file and texture maps.
11. Click on the Set Directory button.
12. Under the Network menu, select Send FTP Command.
13. Follow the example session below. You need to type the parts in boldface.

    jaguar 4% ftp -n 144.80.64.41
    Connected to 144.80.64.41.
    220 Macintosh Resident FTP server, ready
    ftp> prompt
    Interactive mode off.
    ftp> mget *.wrl
    local: hut.wrl remote: hut.wrl
    200 This space intentionally left blank <   >
    150 Opening connection
    226 Transfer complete
    587 bytes received in 0.17 seconds (3.36 Kbytes/s)
    ftp> binary
    200 Type set to I, binary transfer mode [macbinary disabled]
    ftp> mget *.jpg
    local: rock.jpg remote: rock.jpg
    200 This space intentionally left blank <   >
    150 Opening connection
    226 Transfer complete
    1220 bytes received in 0.04 seconds (32.76 Kbytes/s)
    local: wall.jpg remote: birch.jpg
    200 This space intentionally left blank <   >
    150 Opening connection
    226 Transfer complete
    11200 bytes received in 0.31 seconds (35.47 Kbytes/s)
    ftp> quit
    221 Goodbye
    jaguar 5%
    

Giving Public Access to Your Files

1. Type the following to give everyone read access to your files

         jaguar 5% chmod 644 *
   

   or if you are publishing files to your project directory, such as /var/www/htdocs/courses/ls499/steel, and you want to give your team members permission to modify your files, then type

         jaguar 5% chmod 664 *
   

2. Type logout to log off of the SGI workstation.

Maintained by H. Edward Donley <hedonley@grove.iup.edu>
Last Modified Monday, 13-Aug-2001 16:53:27 EDT