This file is a summary of the way a VRML scene should be arranged. It lists the valid grouping nodes, root-level nodes, and children nodes, amongst other useful bits and pieces.
The header (i.e. the first line) for a VRML97 file is as follows:
#VRML V2.0 utf8
Any succeeding line with a # at the start is seen as a comment and ignored.
The following nodes are grouping nodes, which means that they can contain other nodes in their children field.
The following nodes are legal children nodes, which means that they do not need to be contained within anything else,
but can be contained within grouping nodes. Therefore, they can go either at the root of the scene graph or further down, contained
within one of the grouping nodes described earlier.
The following nodes are bindable.
The following nodes are geometry nodes, and can only be contained inside a Shapes geometry field.
The following are special nodes, and can only be contained within certain fields in certain nodes.
| Node | Parent | Field |
| Appearance | Shape | appearance |
| AudioClip | Sound | source |
| Color | ElevationGrid IndexedFaceSet IndexedLineSet | color color color |
| Coordinate | IndexedFaceSet IndexedLineSet PointSet | coord coord coord |
| FontStyle | Text | fontStyle |
| ImageTexture | Appearance | texture |
| Material | Appearance | material |
| MovieTexture | Appearance Sound | texture source |
| Normal | ElevationGrid IndexedFaceSet | normal normal |
| PixelTexture | Appearance | texture |
| TextureCoordinate | ElevationGrid IndexedFaceSet | texCoord texCoord |
| TextureTransform | Appearance | textureTransform |