r.out.vrml(1)

📦
version 8.4.2 · 8 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 r.out.vrml — the GRASS GIS User's Manual era 💖

okay so bestie, you found r.out.vrml(1), and honestly? it's giving vintage 3D export realness. It's a GRASS GIS module, and here's the whole vibe, no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

r.out.vrml — exports a raster map to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). 💅

🏷️ KEYWORDS 🏷️

raster, export, output, VRML

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

r.out.vrml
r.out.vrml --help
r.out.vrml elevation=name  [color=name]   [exaggeration=float]
output=name  [--overwrite]  [--help]  [--verbose]  [--quiet]  [--ui]

🎀 Flags 🎀

  • --overwrite — lets your output files just yeet over existing files, no questions asked. Allow output files to overwrite existing files.
  • --help — prints the usage summary so you can get your lil recap. Print usage summary.
  • --verbose — verbose module output, aka the module tells you everything. Verbose module output.
  • --quiet — quiet module output, aka shhh. Quiet module output.
  • --ui — force launches the GUI dialog, main character window energy. Force launching GUI dialog.

🌸 Parameters 🌸

  • elevation=name [required] — the name of your input elevation raster map. Name of input elevation raster map.
  • color=name — the name of your input color map. Name of input color map.
  • exaggeration=float — vertical exaggeration. Default: 1.0.
  • output=name [required] — the name for your output VRML file. Name for output VRML file.

💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

This module exports a GRASS raster map to the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) format for 3D visualization. Literally building you a lil 3D world out of your raster, iconic behavior.

This version only outputs raster maps in VRML 1.0 format. The newer VRML 2.0 format would highkey be more efficient for geographic applications, because it introduces an "ElevationGrid" node, so only the elevation points would have to be written instead of the whole geometry. But here's the tea: the vast majority of VRML viewers currently only support VRML 1.0. So we're staying in our 1.0 lane. 🫶

Also bestie, heads up: if the extension "wrl" (world) is not present in the output parameter, it will be added for you. The module's got you, fr fr.

😭 WARNING 😭

VRML is not well suited for large geometries, and like... even a small geographic region can produce one. Most viewers seem to bog down with more than 12,000 polygons, depending on your hardware & specific viewer. Every single grid cell results in two polygons, so a reasonable size region would be something less than about 75x75. 💀

For improved performance and smaller file size, leave off a color map. And since VRML is ascii text, gzip works very well to significantly compress file size. Slay, compression.

⭐ NOTES ⭐

This is a preliminary release of "r.out.vrml". For further information about VRML and available viewers for various platforms, see:

  • VRML Virtual Reality Modeling Language

🙈 BUGS 🙈

Currently the region is transformed to a unit size, so real geographic location is lost. Not me losing the whole actual location of the map. 😭

Side effects when working in a lat-lon project: besides general distortion due to projection, a very small exaggeration factor (on order of .001) must be used to compensate for vertical units expected to be the same as map units.

🔥 TODO 🔥

Update to the more modern GeoVRML format, or probably better, the next generation X3D format. See also the Xj3D project.

Future plans for this module are to allow draping of sites objects and vector maps, and using the new sites format available in floating point GRASS to embed WWW links into site objects. It will also be upgraded to support VRML 2.0 and will allow entering multiple preset "views" using the existing GRASS 3d_view file format. Manifesting this glow-up for real. ✨

Other possible additions:

  • Allow animation of elevation, color, or sites based on user interaction.
  • Degradation of the raster to produce TINs for improved performance.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Bill Brown, US Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory. Respect. 🫡

🌈 SOURCE CODE 🌈

Available at: r.out.vrml source code (history)

Accessed: Saturday Jan 17 05:40:53 2026

Main index | Raster index | Topics index | Keywords index | Graphical index | Full index

© 2003-2025 GRASS Development Team, GRASS GIS 8.4.2 Reference Manual

and that's the whole page bestie, you read the entire GRASS 8.4.2 r.out.vrml(1) manual — periodt 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅

📦 where this page comes from