VRML - Blaxxun contact 5.1 and Inlines II

Author

Blaxxun contact 5.1 and Inlines II

Alpine Dragon

2004-12-29, 7:17 pm

Further to my old post "Inlines and Blaxxun Contact 5.1 headaches" that
I posted in Late October.

I managed to alleviate the problem where I was getting random missing
textures and objects, by only referencing one inline per external WRL
file and then using a DEF and multiple USE nodes for each reoccurance of
that object rather than having multiple instances of Inlines for the
same object in the same WRL file.

However another problem has cropped up. It appears the Blaxxun appears
to behave strangely differently on different systems. Some system using
the same Blaxxun Contact 5.1 appear to load up the world
http://www.alpinedragon.orcon.net.nz/3D/test.html fine without any
problems, and others just choke (get just a black screen or just
blaxxun's logo) and get a lot of file errors presented in the console.

The machines at home are either running XP home or windows 2000
professional. But it doesn't seem to be operating system specific,
because one win2000 system can open the world fine and the other win2000
system chokes. Does anyone know why this is?

Even after repeated testing, uninstalling reinstalling, cache clearing
of both Blaxxun and Internet Explorer, it's the same systems that either
can load it fine or just choke and this is trying to view the same world.

On the systems that have problems these errors get presented...

--------
File Error 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\49URS1QR\palace01a_courtyard[1].wrl': (2)
File Error 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\G5GFORKV\wing1[1].wrl': (2)
File Error 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\G5GFORKV\sub_wingwall[1].wrl': (2)
File Error 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\G5GFORKV\sub_wingwind[1].wrl': (2)
File Error 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local
Settings\Temporary Internet
Files\Content.IE5\G5GFORKV\sub_wingwall1[1].wrl': (2)
-------

I'm presuming the '(2)' means something, but can't find anything about
it? Does anyone possibly know what these error messages mean?

Does anyone else end up getting a blank screen and multiple file errors
when they view the world at
http://www.alpinedragon.orcon.net.nz/3D/test.html using blaxxun contact
5.1 or 6.X?

Thanks for any assistance

Alpine Dragon

2004-12-30, 7:15 am

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI wrote:

> Did you tried to change
>
> Options -> Perferences -> Limit number of loaded inlines
>
> Via this point white_dune tries to get out of such a inline recursion, but
> if your recursion path include too much data, white_dune can run out of
> resources (e.g. memory) before the limit is reached 8-(

Thanks, yes this does appear to alleviate the issue.

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2004-12-30, 12:18 pm

>> Via this point white_dune tries to get out of such a inline recursion, but
[color=darkred]
> Thanks, yes this does appear to alleviate the issue.

In this case, it may be usefull to search for Inline recursion.

Despite Inline recursion is not forbidden in

http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specificat...Ref.html#Inline

it is one of the securest way to crash a correctly implemented browser 8-(

Search for a scenario similar to the following (and then try to avoid it):

A.wrl <-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|
.... |
.... |
Inline { url "B.wrl" } -> B.wrl |
.... ... |
.... ... |
Inline { url "C.wrl" } -> C.wrl |
... ... |
... ... |
Inline { url "A.wrl" } -+
...
...

Maybe i should add a mechanism into white_dune to check for such
a configuration and then warn the user 8-(

so long
MUFTI
--
Das Video und Lebhaftigkeit-Bibleotheken jedes enthaelt AVI (Film)Akten,
ohne irgendeinen subcategory-Zusammenbruch
(aus einem Softwarehandbuch, Stichwort: animation)

Alpine Dragon

2004-12-30, 7:20 pm

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI wrote:

> In this case, it may be usefull to search for Inline recursion.
>
> Despite Inline recursion is not forbidden in
>
> http://www.web3d.org/x3d/specificat...Ref.html#Inline
>
> it is one of the securest way to crash a correctly implemented browser 8-(
>
> Search for a scenario similar to the following (and then try to avoid it):
>
> A.wrl <-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> |
> ... |
> ... |
> Inline { url "B.wrl" } -> B.wrl |
> ... ... |
> ... ... |
> Inline { url "C.wrl" } -> C.wrl |
> ... ... |
> ... ... |
> Inline { url "A.wrl" } -+
> ...
> ...
>
> Maybe i should add a mechanism into white_dune to check for such
> a configuration and then warn the user 8-(

I dived back into each of the files to see if I could track down any
recursion, but so far it seems elusive. :o/

It appears white_dune's process will get killed off if it takes longer
than 2 minutes and 45 seconds to open a file (tested on a system using
an Intel P4 3.0Ghz).

I've zipped up the VRML world (including textures) that exhibits the
problem and placed it under here...
http://www.alpinedragon.orcon.net.n...roubleshoot.zip
contact me if you are unable to download, My ISP's homepage server
regulary mulfunctions :o(

The furthest I got was to the palace01a_exterior.wrl file which contains
a series of arranged inlines and DEFs pointing to wing1.wrl and
wing2.wrl (6 of each), palace01a_exterior.wrl will crash White_dune.
However, If you load up the wing1.wrl and wing2.wrl files by themselves,
White_dune appears to opens them up fine.

Another thing I've noticed is that if you remove some of the USE nodes
in palace01a_exterior.wrl then it appears white Dune can open that file
Okay as well.

Currently using the executable white_dune-0.28pl11.exe

mdk

2004-12-30, 7:20 pm

hello,

> to VRML, then using White_dune to assemble objects into a sub scene
> (segments) via the inline, DEF and USE nodes together and finally tying
> all the segments together using a simple text editor

you can use vrmlmerge for this.
there are no cycles in file inclusions - vrmlmerge detects them and reports it.

problems with textures may be that you sometimes type something like
"textures\sky....." - I think it should be a slash not backslash.
although i'm not sure because it seems that all textures are visible.
besides i also had problems with textures in BS Contact 6 and i haven't
solved them. :/ (i switched to cortona instead)

bye
md

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2004-12-30, 7:20 pm

Thanks for the files, it is a problem in white_dune:
It reads the file again, if it find a USEd Inline 8-(

> The furthest I got was to the palace01a_exterior.wrl file which contains
> a series of arranged inlines and DEFs pointing to wing1.wrl and
> wing2.wrl (6 of each), palace01a_exterior.wrl will crash White_dune.

$ grep wrl wing2.wrl
"objects/colm_m001sht001.wrl"
"sub_wingwall.wrl"
"sub_wingwind.wrl"
"sub_wingwall1.wrl"

$ grep sub_wingwal wing2.wrl
DEF sub_wingwall Inline
"sub_wingwall.wrl"
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
USE sub_wingwall
DEF sub_wingwall1 Inline
"sub_wingwall1.wrl"
USE sub_wingwall1
$ grep wrl sub_wingwall.wrl
"objects/extwllp_m001s3dt001.wrl"
"objects/arch_m001s10t001.wrl"
"objects/bsepanwall_m001s10lt201.wrl"
"objects/winpane001.wrl"
$ grep USE sub_wingwall.wrl
USE winpane001
USE winpane001
USE winpane001
USE winpane001
USE winpane001

6x(wings2)*12x(sub_wingwal?)*9x(wrl+winpane) = 648 files

only to read the file for the wing2 tree.

It takes a long time to read and parse 648 files 8-(

After 30 minutes, the system i am currently using was able to open the
file and show the content (loaded so far).

Using ktrace/kdump (the strace of the system), i was able to count the
open/stat systemcalls of files containing the string "wrl":

$ kdump -f ktrace.out | grep NAMI | grep wrl | wc -l
2003

Cause there is one NAMI per stat and one NAMI per open, this is rather
similar to the default 1000 Inline limit. So i suspect, the wing1 tree
of palace01a_exterior.wrl would cause the read of more than 352 files 8-(

> However, If you load up the wing1.wrl and wing2.wrl files by themselves,
> White_dune appears to opens them up fine.

Your system is too fast, you do not see a problem, when a hundred files are
read 8-)

I will try to repair the unneccessary read of files on each USE of a Inline
in white_dune.

I will also try if i can avoid the read of 41 texture files...

In fact noone thought about this type of problem 8-(
Hopefully other tools/browsers do not make the same error as well...

so long
MUFTI
--
(Press Retry to debug the application - JIT must be enabled)
Abbrechen Wiederholen Ignorieren
aus einer M$Windows "assert" Fehlermeldung

Josip Almasi

2005-01-01, 7:14 am

Alpine Dragon wrote:
>
> The machines at home are either running XP home or windows 2000
> professional. But it doesn't seem to be operating system specific,
> because one win2000 system can open the world fine and the other win2000
> system chokes. Does anyone know why this is?

M$?:)

How about _service packs_ installed?

AFAIK this 'strange behaviour' depends more on exploiter version than os
version. Service packs patch exploiter.

Regards...

mdk

2005-01-02, 7:17 pm

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2005-01-03, 12:16 pm

> The furthest I got was to the palace01a_exterior.wrl file which contains
> a series of arranged inlines and DEFs pointing to wing1.wrl and
> wing2.wrl (6 of each), palace01a_exterior.wrl will crash White_dune.

Can you try version 0.29beta011 ?

http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/vrml/dune/down.html

This version do not reread USEd Inlines. On my system it need less then
10 seconds to read palace01a_exterior.wrl.

so long
MUFTI
--
Die Leistung des Spieles kann verlangsamt werden durch
eine schwer zerlegbare Festplatte.

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-04, 4:15 am

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI wrote:
>
>
> Can you try version 0.29beta011 ?
>
> http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/vrml/dune/down.html
>
> This version do not reread USEd Inlines. On my system it need less then
> 10 seconds to read palace01a_exterior.wrl.
>
> so long
> MUFTI

Excellent, Thanks Joerg.
Yes, it opens up considerably much faster now. :o)
(takes only about 3-4 seconds on my system to open palace01a_exterior.wrl)

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-04, 4:15 am

mdk wrote:

> problems with textures may be that you sometimes type something like
> "textures\sky....." - I think it should be a slash not backslash.
> although i'm not sure because it seems that all textures are visible.
> besides i also had problems with textures in BS Contact 6 and i haven't
> solved them. :/ (i switched to cortona instead)

Yes, you are correct, the sky background pictures referenced in the main
wrl file should have a forward slash in the path. The textures
referenced in the other wrl files all had a forward slash so displayed
correctly. Thanks for pointing that out for me.

Appears so far that when viewing my test world, Cartona users were able
to display the world generally without problems, while BS Contact 5.1 or
6.X would have trouble on random objects not displaying and/or textures
missing.

It happened almost every time when the inlines in all the WRL files were
referenced like this.

Main.wrl
Inline "sub2.wrl"
Inline "sub2.wrl"
Inline "sub2.wrl"
Inline "sub2.wrl"
Inline "sub2.wrl"
Inline "sub3.wrl"
Inline "sub3.wrl"
Inline "sub3.wrl"
Inline "sub3.wrl"

But appears to have alleviated the problem somewhat when I referenced
any subsequent Inline using the DEF and USE nodes. So far, out of the
25-30 times I've loaded it, I've only had a single instance where the
world had a texture missing on about three of the objects under BS Contact.

Main.wrl
DEF sub2 Inline "sub2.wrl"
USE sub2
USE sub2
USE sub2
USE sub2
USE sub2
DEF sub3 Inline "sub3.wrl"
USE sub3
USE sub3
USE sub3

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-06, 7:15 am

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2005-01-06, 7:15 am

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-06, 12:20 pm

mdk

2005-01-06, 12:20 pm

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2005-01-06, 12:20 pm

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-06, 7:19 pm

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-06, 7:19 pm

Joerg Scheurich aka MUFTI

2005-01-08, 4:17 am

Alpine Dragon

2005-01-10, 7:21 pm