planning buildings with VRML

in the recent month handgestrickt netzwerk worked on a big job. for Raumwerk Dortmund, a customer of zwex | internet, we wrote a system which gives users the ability to plan own future buildings in 2D, then later go through it in 3D. the system uses 3D-CAD-files as a base, then generates a graphical 2D-topview. based on W3C-DOM-compliant JavaScript the user can plan buildings in 2D. one can add new walls, doors and change textures. when everything is finished, the user can go through this building in a generated VRML-result. the Cortona VRML Client or any other VRML-plugin is required. the system was successfully tested in Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox and Opera.

the following things were really hard:
-writing a VRML97-parser in PHP
-generating 2D-topview from CAD-files
-JavaScript-user-interface
-calculating "what makes a room a room?"
-inserting new objects into the resulting VRML
-a lot of mathematical polygon-calculations

unfortunately the "building-planner" is still in beta-phase and not available for the public. later handgestrickt netzwerk will release the link and a VRML97-parser in PHP.