FreeWRL welcome graphic

Navigation Modes

This section shows what keys/mouse movements are used to navigate. Navigation mode types can be set via the NavigationInfo node in your X3D program; if no NavigationInfo node is present, the system defaults to the EXAMINE mode.

Note that an active KeySensor or StringSensor will intercept key presses and releases. You can use the ESC key to toggle off KeySensor mode.

Navigation mode can be set via menus, or via specific keypresses; see below. A mouse drag is done by pressing the left mouse button and moving the mouse. A touch drag is done by pressing a finger down and dragging. Both are called drags.

EXAMINE Mode

Drag controls rotation; left/right drag controls rotation around Y axis; up/down drag controls movement around X axis.

DIST Mode

up/down drag zooms model in/out.

WALK Mode

Up/down drags makes you walk forward/backward; left/right drag turns you left/right.

FLY Mode

Gives 6-degree-of-freedom control over your movement, either through menubar fly modes and mouse drags or by keyboard/Arrowkeys.

drag fly

keyboard/arrowkey fly

There are 4 Arrowkey fly modes: YAWZ, XY, YAWPITCH, ROLL, which you can change with SHIFT-Arrow-Left/Right

Non-Navigation Key Mappings

This section shows what keys are used to change the behaviour of FreeWRL.

In addition to the keys described in the Fly section above, there are some keys which work in all the modes:

Commmand Line Options

--help
Prints out all the options available in the current version.

--version
Prints out the current FreeWRL version.

--fullscreen
Forces FreeWRL to run in fullscreen mode if possible. Note that if your graphics drivers have an alternate way to enable fullscreen rendering it may be best to use that way instead. The fullscreen flag will not enable hardware acceleration if it has not already been enabled. (see also --big option)

--big
Forces FreeWRL to run in 800x600 mode. See also --fullscreen option

--geo[metry] geom
Set the initial window geometry with the usual X window format string.

--eai host:port
The browser will try to connect to the socket at host:port to obtain an EAI connection. This option is mostly for internal use by the EAI libraries.

--server
FreeWRL will behave as a server : it spawns a child browser, prints its PID on STDOUT and exits. The child then reloads the url given on the command line upon receipt of a SIGUSR1 signal.

--sig
Reload the URL given on the command line upon receipt of a SIGUSR1 signal.

Commmand Line Options - Stereovision

For each of shutter, anaglyph and sidebyside stereovision modes the --eyedist, --screendist and --stereo numbers are used to place left and right viewpoints in-scene. The 2D screen cursor defaults to the right viewport alignment which accomodates the dominant eye preference for most people.

--shutter
Forces FreeWRL to start in shutterglas stereo mode via GLX_STEREO in attributs of glXChooseVisual. This needs software and hardware like XIG DX Platiuum Xserver on a Linux PC with 3DRelevator shutterglasses or IRIX on a SGI Indigo2 Impact with crystal eyes shutterglasses. On some SGI machines, you need to switch to a stereo capable visual as root with setmon/xsetmon and then restart the X Server.

If GL_STEREO is not available on your machine the view mode defaults to flutter which alternates between left and right every few seconds in a regular window, used for testing.

--anaglyph LR
Renders stereovision using different colors for left and right eye. You need color filters or special anaglyph eyewear to view stereoscopically. L and R are each one of R,G,B,C,M,A (red,green,blue,cyan,magenta,amber/yellow) and the most usual combinations are --anaglyph RG or --anaglyph RB. The current version of --anaglyph does not render textures.

--sidebyside
Renders stereovision in 2 viewports in the same window. To view stereoscopically, stretch the window to be twice your physical eyebase or a few mm less. If you wear eyeglasses just put your glasses against the screen and stretch the window till each lens is centered in a viewport. Then aim your eyes to be parallel so each one is looking at a different viewport. To help, hold a card or your hand halfway between your face and the screen in such a way it blocks the opposite viewport for each eye. If you have a mirror stereoscopy you can stretch the window to match the eyebase of that.

--eyedist number
Stereovision in-scene eyebase - disance between the eyes of the avatar, defaults to .06.

--screendist number
Stereovision screen eyebase - for sidebyside stereo: horizontal distance between viewports in screen fractions, default .6

Entering options on Windows OS

Windows version comes with a FreeWRL_Launcher program, which helps prepare command-line arguments, select the scene file, and launch freewrl.exe. Screenshot shows in-app options panel -available on all platforms- for changing options mid-run.

screenshot

Info

From circa 1999 to April 2010, the FreeWRL project was managed by John A. Stewart.

There is absolutely no warranty, express or implied for this software. For details on the conditions of use, see the FreeWRL distribution.

FreeWRL is Copyright (C) 1998, 1999...2009 Tuomas J. Lukka, John Stewart and others.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Library General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Library General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Library General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

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