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How do I make an object in my world link to a HTML page or another world?

Put an object in the scene (in this case a simple box).

Hit the group icon to make a new group. In the tree window drag the box into the newly created group.The box becomes a child of the group.

Double click on the group in the tree window and see the group properties window pop-up.

Click the radio button to select Anchor. Put descriptive text in there so the user can know in advance where they are going (it appears in the browser status area). If you want to have the world or HTML pop up in a new browser window, you can use target=new as a parameter. If you leave the parameter area blank, the VRML or HTML will open in the existing browser window.

You can see that the symbol for the group changes to an anchor. This lets you know that you have assigned this new functionality to this particular group.

get thee a vrml plugin.

Click on this example to hop to the main page of this site.

O.K., what if I just want to jump to another location (Viewpoint) in the same world?

In this simplified example, I put a box in one group and a sphere in another group. In the Group properties panel, I select the radio button to turn the group into an anchor. I put #Viewpoint2 in the URL field so when the box is clicked the user goes to Viewpoint2 and sees the sphere. I did just the opposite for the second group.

Scene Overview (what it looks like)

Viewpoint1 sees the box which when clicked moves the user to Viewpoint2 to see the sphere.

Here is a Flux Studio file and here is a VRML97 example.

Can I cause an anchor to play a midi file?

Sure you can! If the user has a midi player (most do), this anchor will fire it up and play the file.

Can you make a fancy little pop-up window where you control the size?

Of course, but you will have to do a little editing of the VRML file.

Anchor { url "javascript:function popup(){window.open('a_web_page.html', 'newpage','width=200,height=80');};popup();" children [ ...

For a better tutorial on hand editing your anchors for total control, please see Rev. Bobs VRMLworks (type Anchor in the search window)..

For more technical details, feel free to read the specification on this topic...

http://www.web3d.org/technicalinfo/specifications/vrml97/part1/nodesRef.html#Anchor

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