Browser notes

Starting up the Browser

To use the Browser, doubleclick on the Browser desktop icon (Blue diamond shaped icon on your desktop). This will open up the VastPark Browser. It may take some time to initialize the first time you run it each session as the .Net runtime must be initialized first. Once it opens, type in the URL into the address bar at the top and hit Enter. The Browser supports HTTP and VP:// links (not case sensitive). If you have a problem with a site the best idea is usually to close the Browser and reopen it. This will be improved over time so that sites don’t cause problems for the Browser but right now that’s the simplest solution to most uses. It is very rare to have any problem with the Browser that causes the entire system to hang and need restarting. If such an event happens please try to replicate the fault and let us know the sequence of events as that is a critical bug for us to fix and we don’t know about it yet or we will have patched it.

Another way of starting up the VastPark Browser is to click on a vp:// link. This tells Windows to open up the VastPark Browser. The first time this happens, Windows will generally show you a warning dialogue box. Please approve this so that you are not bothered each time you click on a vp:// link. Once you’ve done this, the VastPark Browser will open as normal but automatically have the link and try to open the site

What the Browser does to show you a virtual environment

The Browser connects via HTTP with the server referred to in the link, receives the IMML description of the virtual room from the server, reads it and then dynamically downloads any content referenced within the IMML description that it doesn’t already have cached. By default, cache is set to 5 hours at this time. You can change this manually in the system settings. Once downloaded, then the Browser will connect as a client to that Server if it is acting as a real time relay (this enables you to see others in the same environment). If there is no server acting as a real time server for that park then you will not have a real time multiuser experience. Either way, the Browser will now begin to visualize the immersive experience described in the IMML description.

The IMML language can be used for all kinds of virtual worlds, immersive presentations, entertainment sites, training, immersive meetings and 3D product demonstrations. Once you have the content, you can save the source file and run it off the desktop with the content cached.