Any web server can serve VRML files.

VRML's MIME types are:

• x-world/x-vrml (older version)
• model/world  (newer version)

The base MIME type for X3D files is: model/x3d. Each file format has its own modifier. XML is +xml, Classic VRML is +vrml. The following table summarizes the file extension, MIME type, and X3D encoding:

The standard mechanism for indicating gzipped files is for the web server to set a special header field called 'Content-Encoding'. This field indicates if the content has been encoding beyond that present in the media. This is the field that is used to indicate that the file has been compressed with gzip. When the web browser detects this field, it is responsible for gunzipping the file prior to passing it to the X3D browser.

If the file is gzipped, then the content-encoding value is "gzip" with the appropriate Classic VRML or X3D Binary extension. So gzip .x3dvz and gzip .x3dbz.

The simplest way to set your server to correctly display X3D files is to add the following to your document root's .htaccess file

AddType model/x3d+xml .x3d
AddType model/x3d+vrml .x3dv
AddType model/x3d+binary .x3db
AddEncoding gzip .x3dvz
AddEncoding gzip .x3dbz