NAVIGATION TOOLS EXPLORERS
As with all files destined for display on the World Wide Web, smaller is better with VRML (Virtual Reality Markup Language). On a standard 28.8KB modem with average network traffic, a file of 150K downloads in about 120 seconds. To that, you must add extra time for downloading any texture map files. Download performance, then, is the first issue: How long does it take to download the file from the Web server and load it into memory?
This is a function of file size. The only time file size might not be an issue is when you are creating virtualworlds for access over an intranet in a particular organization. The second issue is navigation speed or performance after the file loads into memory, a function of model complexity. This relates to file size, of course, because the more complex the model and the more faces it has, the larger the file.
The main bottleneck here, however, is in the video display: How many pixels does the video display card have to process and put out to the screen? When you navigate within a VRML world, the browser interprets this code and passes it to your PC hardware, which actually renders it in real time.
The term browser, as used here, refers to the virtual reality viewer software that plugs into your Web browser (Netscape or Internet Explorer or Firefox). Available browsers are reviewed later in the chapter. Keep in mind that performance that depends on file size is a more subjective measure. What seems an unacceptably long download time to one person may seem quite acceptable to another.
Download time is the lesser of the two limitations. Generally speaking, you will not want to miss out on the vitality that texture maps bring to your model for the sake of the extra time needed to download them. What you definitely want to avoid is creating models with so many faces that the computer gets bogged down trying to display them.
There are many tools and techniques you can use to work with both these limitations to produce VRML files optimized for download and navigation performance on the Web.
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My Navigation Equipment
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Tools of Navigation: A Kid’s Guide to the History & Science of Finding Your Way (Tools of Discovery series) $10.12 Track the evolution of navigational methods and tools while traveling through the past and into the future. Detailed accounts of actual explorations and factual biographies of famous explorers are combined with 15 activities that include building a compass and an astrolabe, making a sky chart, working with a topographic map, and more. 160 pages. Grades 4-9…. |
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Tools of Navigation $13.95 Children will learn all about inventions: their inventors, the way they changed history, and their evolution over centuries, through the activities and anecdotes provided in this interactive series. Travel through the past and into the future to explore the history of human navigation, from the crude maps of early explorers to the satellite-based Global Positioning System of today. This guide to learning about geography, trade routes over land and sea, and navigational tools and people who used them, is supplemented with 15 hands-on projects and educational activities to expand world view and build navigational confidence. |
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Tools of Navigation $12.98 Children will learn all about inventions: their inventors, the way they changed history, and their evolution over centuries, through the activities and anecdotes provided in this interactive series.Travel through the past and into the future to explore the history of human navigation, from the crude maps of early explorers to the satellite-based Global Positioning System of today. This guide to learning about geography, trade routes over land and sea, and navigational tools and people who used them, is supplemented with 15 hands-on projects and educational activities to expand world view and build navigational confidence. |
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Tools Of Navigation $15.25 Tools Of Navigation |
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Tools Of Navigation: A Kid’s Guide To The History & Science Of Finding $28.19 divChildren will learn all about inventions: their inventors, the way they changed history, and their evolution over centuries, through the activities and anecdotes provided in this interactive series.brbrTravel through the past and into the future to explore the history of human navigation, from the crude maps of early explorers to the satellite-based Global Positioning System of today. This guide to learning about geography, trade routes over land and sea, and navigational tools and people who used them, is supplemented with 15 hands-on projects and educational activities to expand world view and build navigational confidence.br/div |
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Tools of Navigation: A Kid’s Guide to the History & Science of Finding $8.57 DIVChildren will learn all about inventions: their inventors, the way they changed history, and their evolution over centuries, through the activities and anecdotes provided in this interactive series.BRBRTravel through the past and into the future to explore the history of human navigation, from the crude maps of early explorers to the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) of today. This guide to learning about geography, trade routes over land and sea, and navigational tools and people who used them, is supplemented with 15 hands-on projects and educational activities to expand world view and build navigational confidence.BR/DIVDIVExcellent resource for an inquiry learning format. —IGifted Education News/I/DIVDIVWill provide you with skills and inspiration. —IVoyaging/I/DIVDIVA delightful exploration of how humans through the ages have…sought to depict and measure the world. —IThe Why Files: Science Behind the News/I/DIVDIVA remarkable account of navigation and the problems presented to the early sailors. —Ted Jones, commodore of the Joshua Slocum Society/DIVDIVThis book has it all: history, science, math, inventions, vocabulary, art, diversity, and laughs! —ICousteau Kids/I/DIVDIVLively text . . . a handy resource. —IVOYA Magazine/I/DIVDIVDIVInformation-packed resources. —ICurriculum Connections (School Library Journal/Isupplement)/DIV/DIVDIVDIVThis delightful mix of science, history, and adventure makes the perfect basis for a unit study on navigation or as an adjunct to a unit on exploration. —Eclectic Homeschool Online/DIV/DIVDIVbRachel Dickinson/bis a travel, nature, and science writer whose articles have been published in such magazines asiAudubon/i,iThe Christian Science Monitor/i,iNational Geographic Traveler/i, andiU.S.A. Weekend/i. She is the author o@!#×=p¤ÿ¾Úx |
