From a Small Formula to Cyberworlds

Abstract. Cyberworlds created on the web allow for providing personal mentoring of the students with different cultural and educational backgrounds. Virtual Campus of Nanyang Technological University is designed to be such a cyberworld. This is a place for research and education, fun and immersion in campus life. Besides standard VRML, its hybrid function-based extension is used in the design of Virtual Campus. In place of thousands of polygons, small formulas are used for constituting complex geometric shapes and appearances. Collaborative Shape Modeling Laboratory, which is a part of the Virtual Campus, is based on this extension. It is developed to help students with their computer graphics assignments. 1 Online Experiences Versus Online Courses Cyber-learning has already become an important and vital part of university education. Conventional ways of teaching, when only lectures and practical exercises in a class are used, no longer satisfy the growing demands and challenges of modern education. This becomes especially essential when large or distributed classes are bein