FreeWRL

Another Open Source VRML97 browser is Tuomas Lukka's FreeWRL, a Perl-based effort that uses OpenGL for 3D rendering and FreeType for font support. As such, it is one of the few VRML97 browsers that runs under Linux, but because of its dependence on a host of secondary Perl packages and external libraries,[46] it is not for the meek. Version 0.13 supported PNG, but just barely: only on primitive shapes (Box, Cylinder, and Sphere, not IndexedFaceSet, Extrusion, or ElevationGrid nodes), and in a test world with both PNGs and JPEGs, the two JPEG textures appeared to be used on every textured surface, replacing all of the PNG textures. It also did not support material transparency, had problems with nonconvex, textured polygons, and, as a script-based browser, was rather slow.

[46] Perl 5.0; Perl modules libwww, libnet, MIME-Base64, MD5, HTML-Parser, and Data-Dumper; Mesa or a commercial OpenGL library; FreeType; libjpeg, libpng, and zlib; and optionally XSwallow, to enable its use in Netscape Navigator as an inline VRML plug-in.

Version 0.17 was Tuomas's final release (December 1998); as of January 1999, John Stewart was the maintainer, and the new web site was http://debra.dgbt.crc.ca/~luigi/FreeWRL/. Version 0.19 was the current release as of early April 1999.