But then again, maybe I'm not making sense... the authoring tools are
going to be targetted at specific problems. They will read in VRML,
create their objects, change them with their UI, and write out VRML.
In terms of how this work, the wrl file is first read into an object
structure that follows the language specification in a straightforward
way. This object structure is then transformed into a problem domain
specific structure. Its this transformation that is affected by the
file format, so that's why I think we are already discussing this in the
context of authoring tools.
For example, if your authoring tool is attaching a texture to an
Appearance node, it must limit the texture to ImageTexture,
PixelTexture, MovieTexture. At the moment VRML defines these as
SFNodes, indistinguishable from the 50+ other nodes. So your authoring
tool has to restrict the texture attachment to these three. But if the
language (file format) defined these as subclasses of Texture, then when
the wrl file is parsed, that work would be done already. You're free to
move on to more advanced things in your authoring tool, like providing
cool content producing widgets for your GUI.
JJ