Practices of 3D Dynamic Interactive Cartographic Visualization Based on VRML

D dynamic interactive visualization via Internet becomes the main trend of modern cartography along with the fast development of WWW and Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) which can run in Internet,Intranet and local system.This paper studies on the technical characteristics of VRML and explores the potential of its application to modern cartography.The conceptual approach and prototypical practices have been researched with the combination of Visual C ++ .The main works are focused on (1) the experiment of large data volume of 3D terrain of Beijing area by VRML 2.0; (2) developing a prototype system of 3D dynamic interactive visualization,and applying it to the visualization of Beijing population change.These applications are successful.The experiences in the practices show that VRML 2.0 is limited for interactive dynamic visualization of geo applications. Furthermore,the capabilities of browsers and plug ins influence the display of VRML applications and have to be more standardized.