Virtual Reality Internet Browsing Tool

"Visual Expresso"

Do you ever feel lost in HyperSpace?

Have you ever been assaulted by too many conflicting browsing options?

(Up, Down, Forward, Back, Home, Hyper-Linkksss... etc.)

VisualExpresso tackles this problem head-on, by integrating the Internet's structure into the browsing environment. Now browsing can take place within the confines of a VRML world, which has fixed reference points graphically depicting the structure of the site within a Desktop Virtual Environment (DVE).

Here's a screen-shot generated by VisualExpresso (click to enlarge). Objects in these pictures represent individual internet pages and lines represent the links between pages. The "hut" at the bottom depicts the home page of the site.

Or click here for a VRML 2.0 world (.wrl) representation of this site.

How does VisualExpresso work?

VisualExpresso examines the structure of each page on an internet site, identifying the HyperLinks to other pages.

VisualExpresso then creates an intermediate data structure, storing the structure (not the content) of the internet site.

VisualExpresso writes out a VRML (Virtual Reality Modelling Language) file which depicts the structure of the internet site in question - using this intermediate representation. You browser (+ VRML plug-in) looks at this VRML present a 3D world of you internet site, like so...

Can I create my own 3D world using Visual Expresso??

Yes, very easily.

How do I use VisualExpresso?

This is the user-friendly Interface to VisualExpresso - that's all you ever see (except for the VRML world obviously).

The Free downloads section. (plus a step by step guide for Installing and using Visual Expresso).

Visual Expresso download

And Cortona VRML 2 player (plug-in) and Java in case you don't have 'em already.

- Please email diarmuid.odonoghue@may.ie if you download VisualExpresso - we might develop it further if people find VisualExpersso useful.

David Cleary, 1998. dcleary@cs.may.ie

See also the VR-Net visualisation tool.

Publications

David Cleary, and O'Donoghue, D. "Generating a Topically Focused Virtual-Reality Internet", INET 2000 - The 10th Annual Conference of The Internet Society, Yokohama, Japan, 18-21 July 2000.

Cleary, D. and O'Donoghue, D. "A Virtual Reality Topology Tool for Maintaining Web-sites", Applied Informatics 2000, Innsbruck, Austria, pp 771-774, 0-88986-280-X, 2000.

David Cleary, O'Donoghue, D, " VisualExpresso: Generating a Virtual Reality Internet", in P. Sloot, M. Bubak, A. Hoekstra, and B. Hertzberger (Ed.) High Performance Computing and Networking HPCN-99: Virtual Reality Workshop - LNCS 1593, pp 797-806, Springer-Verlag, (1999).

back up to Diarmuid O'Donoghue's page

URL: http://www.cs.may.ie/~dod/dcleary
Revised: Oct. 2000.
Contact: dod@cs.may.ie
Copyright Š1998 National University of Ireland, Maynooth