File Structure Summary

This file is a summary of the way a VRML scene should be arranged. It lists the valid grouping nodes, root-level nodes, and children nodes, amongst other useful bits and pieces.

VRML97 File Header

The header (i.e. the first line) for a VRML97 file is as follows:

#VRML V2.0 utf8

Any succeeding line with a # at the start is seen as a comment and ignored.

VRML97 MIME Types

The MIME types for VRML are:

x-world/x-vrml
model/vrml

The first is old, and new applications should assume the second one.

Grouping Nodes

The following nodes are grouping nodes, which means that they can contain other nodes in their children field.

Child Nodes

The following nodes are legal child nodes, which means that they do not need to be contained within anything else, but can be contained within grouping nodes. Therefore, they can go either at the root of the scene graph or further down, contained within one of the grouping nodes described earlier.

Bindable Nodes

The following nodes are bindable.

Geometry Nodes

The following nodes are geometry nodes, and can only be contained inside a Shapes geometry field.

Special Nodes

The following are special nodes, and can only be contained within certain fields in certain nodes.

NodeParentField
AppearanceShapeappearance
AudioClipSoundsource
ColorElevationGrid
IndexedFaceSet
IndexedLineSet
color
color
color
CoordinateIndexedFaceSet
IndexedLineSet
PointSet
coord
coord
coord
FontStyleTextfontStyle
ImageTextureAppearancetexture
MaterialAppearancematerial
MovieTextureAppearance
Sound
texture
source
NormalElevationGrid
IndexedFaceSet
normal
normal
PixelTextureAppearancetexture
TextureCoordinateElevationGrid
IndexedFaceSet
texCoord
texCoord
TextureTransformAppearancetextureTransform