In 1996 I started reading about VRML and tried a few experiments. There were many that failed, but then in 1998 I resumed the study and VRML was in it's second version. VRML 2.0 made some significant improvements to the technology and this Canadian Flag was my first successful model.
I remember that it took many days to map the coordinates and build the geometry in VRML; now however it takes just a few minutes to produce the same geometry in AC3D or other 3D tools.