Preserving yesterday's virtual worlds. Building tomorrow's open ones.
Website · FreeWRL · WRL Forge · Cyber Town Next-Gen · Skate.FM
Ascendance Open Worlds develops and preserves open-source technology for interactive 3D environments.
Our work connects classic virtual-world technology with modern development: VRML97 and X3D runtimes, world-building tools, 3D content pipelines, interoperability utilities, archival work, and experiments in persistent online spaces.
We believe old virtual worlds are worth preserving, open standards still matter, and useful 3D tools should remain understandable, portable, and available to the people who build with them.
Note
Ascendance3D is the GitHub home for Ascendance Open Worlds. Projects will move here deliberately as they become part of the broader open-worlds toolset.
| Area | What we work on |
|---|---|
| Open virtual worlds | Technology for persistent, networked, interactive 3D spaces. |
| VRML97 & X3D | Runtime modernization, compatibility work, testing, tooling, and preservation. |
| 3D developer tools | Creation, validation, conversion, packaging, and QA workflows for 3D content. |
| Digital preservation | Keeping historically important virtual-world software, formats, assets, and documentation usable on modern systems. |
| Spatial experiments | New ideas built on open standards and lessons from earlier online worlds. |
The active FreeWRL fork is modernizing the long-running open-source VRML97/X3D browser for current systems, including native Apple Silicon macOS work, automated regression testing, standalone packaging, and preservation of legacy 3D content.
FreeWRL remains an independent open-source project with its original authors and upstream history. Ascendance Open Worlds contributes modernization and preservation work around that codebase.
WRL Forge is a cross-platform desktop tool for editing, previewing, inspecting, and packaging classic VRML97 .wrl content.
It combines a native VRML97 editor with live X_ITE preview, gzip-transparent file handling, Cybertown item inspection, world-project scanning, and deterministic project packaging. Public builds are available for Linux, Windows, and Apple Silicon macOS.
- Website & downloads: wrlforge.com
- Source: Ascendance3D/wrlforge
WRL Forge is an independent community project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Cybertown or its current or former operators.
Cyber Town Next-Gen focuses specifically on restoring, documenting, and extending Cybertown-era software and worlds.
Cybertown-specific projects remain under their own organization. Ascendance Open Worlds provides the broader home for reusable 3D, VRML/X3D, world-building, and preservation technology.
- Open source first.
- Use open formats where practical.
- Preserve before replacing.
- Document what we learn.
- Keep old worlds runnable.
- Build tools people can actually use.
Ascendance Open Worlds is intentionally broader than one application or one historical world.
Ascendance Open Worlds / Ascendance3D
├── FreeWRL modernization
├── WRL Forge — VRML97 editing, preview, inspection, and packaging
├── 3D and world-building tools
├── reusable spatial software
├── preservation utilities
└── experimental open-world projects
Cyber Town Next-Gen
└── Cybertown-specific restoration and development
Skate.FM
└── skating, radio, and media projects
Public projects will include their own build, test, contribution, and licensing instructions.
For engineering work, we prefer:
- focused changes with clear scope;
- reproducible builds and tests;
- evidence before compatibility claims;
- preservation of project history and attribution;
- documentation that explains both what changed and why.
Ascendance Open Worlds is maintained by Ryan / DJ Ascendance.
The organization brings together open-source 3D development, virtual-world preservation, VRML/X3D work, and related spatial software under one long-term technical home.
Open worlds. Open tools. Long memory.