A .WRZ file is most often a gzip-compressed VRML world, meaning it’s just a .WRL 3D scene shrunk to reduce size, since VRML is a text-based format describing full 3D environments—geometry, materials, textures, lights, and sometimes animation—so compressing it works extremely well, and systems label this compressed form as .WRZ or sometimes `.wrl.gz`, with the typical workflow being to decompress it using tools like 7-Zip or `gzip` to get a .WRL file that VRML-capable viewers can load, keeping texture files in their expected folders so they appear correctly.

One fast way to confirm gzip compression is checking for the header 1F 8B at the beginning, which strongly aligns with WRZ’s role as a gzipped WRL, and many users confuse this with RWZ, a file type used for email rule export files, so files tied to email management may actually be RWZ, while those from modeling or CAD tools are likely legitimate WRZ files.

Saying a .WRZ is a "Compressed VRML World" means it’s simply a VRML scene—normally saved as .WRL, with "WRL" standing for *world*—that has been gzipped to make the file smaller, as VRML uses structured text to describe full interactive 3D scenes including objects, materials, textures, lighting, and even animations, and since text compresses very efficiently, the VRML community standardized on .wrl.gz or .wrz as names for gzipped VRML files.

From a practical standpoint, the phrase "compressed VRML world" signals that you should open the file as a gzip archive first to recover a .WRL usable in VRML/X3D-capable software, and you can verify this by checking for gzip’s magic bytes the code 1F 8B in a hex viewer, which is strong evidence you’re dealing with an authentic gzipped VRML file, not a look-alike format.

Exploring a VRML "world" (the .WRL you get from unpacking a .WRZ) shows a scene graph of typed nodes describing visuals and user movement, with Transform/Group constructs managing transform hierarchies, Shape nodes merging geometry such as Extrusion with Material/ImageTexture appearance, and standard world components including Viewpoint cameras, NavigationInfo behavior settings, and bindable environment nodes like Background, optional Fog, and Sound.

In VRML, interactivity stems from Sensor nodes such as ProximitySensor that emit events, animations come from TimeSensor and multiple interpolators that generate timed value changes, and ROUTEs wire eventOuts to eventIns, while Script nodes using VRMLScript/JavaScript (and sometimes Java) add advanced behavior, with Anchor nodes enabling jumps to other worlds or viewpoints, and because VRML separates spatial transform nodes from non-spatial elements like interpolators, NavigationInfo, TimeSensor, and Script, the result behaves like a lightweight interactive application rather than a static mesh.

Describing .WRZ as a "Compressed VRML World" means it’s not its own format but a VRML world (. If you are you looking for more information about WRZ file unknown format look into the web site. WRL) stored in gzip form to reduce bandwidth back in VRML’s web days, so the content remains VRML text defining 3D scene elements like geometry, viewpoints, lights, textures, navigation, and interactivity, with .wrz or .wrl.gz indicating that gzip wrapper—a convention the Library of Congress documents—which is why 7-Zip/gzip works and why spotting the 1F 8B signature early in the file strongly suggests true gzipped VRML.