Samothrakis S, Arvanitis T N, Plataniotis A, McNeill M D, Lister P F
University of Sussex, Centre for VLSI and Computer Graphics, School of Engineering, Falmer, Brighton, UK.
Int J Med Inform. 1997 Nov;47(1-2):69-73. doi: 10.1016/s1386-5056(97)00078-6.
Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) is the start of a new era for medicine and the World Wide Web (WWW). Scientists can use VRML across the Internet to explore new three-dimensional (3D) worlds, share concepts and collaborate together in a virtual environment. VRML enables the generation of virtual environments through the use of geometric, spatial and colour data structures to represent 3D objects and scenes. In medicine, researchers often want to interact with scientific data, which in several instances may also be dynamic (e.g. MRI data). This data is often very large and is difficult to visualise. A 3D graphical representation can make the information contained in such large data sets more understandable and easier to interpret. Fast networks and satellites can reliably transfer large data sets from computer to computer. This has led to the adoption of remote tale-working in many applications including medical applications. Radiology experts, for example, can view and inspect in near real-time a 3D data set acquired from a patient who is in another part of the world. Such technology is destined to improve the quality of life for many people. This paper introduces VRML (including some technical details) and discusses the advantages of VRML in application developing.
虚拟现实建模语言（VRML）开启了医学和万维网（WWW）的新时代。科学家们可以通过互联网使用VRML来探索新的三维（3D）世界，在虚拟环境中分享概念并共同协作。VRML通过使用几何、空间和颜色数据结构来表示3D对象和场景，从而实现虚拟环境的生成。在医学领域，研究人员常常希望与科学数据进行交互，而在某些情况下这些数据可能还是动态的（例如磁共振成像数据）。这类数据通常非常庞大，难以可视化。三维图形表示可以使包含在如此庞大的数据集中的信息更易于理解和解释。高速网络和卫星能够可靠地在计算机之间传输大型数据集。这导致了远程协同工作在包括医学应用在内的许多应用中得到采用。例如，放射学专家可以近乎实时地查看和检查从世界另一端的患者那里获取的3D数据集。这类技术注定会改善许多人的生活质量。本文介绍了VRML（包括一些技术细节），并讨论了VRML在应用开发中的优势。
