A .WRZ file is most commonly understood as a gzip-compressed VRML scene, where a .WRL world file—containing text-based 3D data such as shapes, materials, lights, cameras, and occasional animations—has been packed tightly because VRML compresses extremely well, leading to the convention of naming these archives .WRZ or `.wrl.gz`, and the usual method of opening them is to unzip with something like 7-Zip or `gzip` to produce a .WRL that VRML/X3D tools can read, provided any texture images remain in the correct relative paths.

A reliable sanity check is looking for the gzip marker 1F 8B, which strongly hints the file is a compressed stream consistent with WRZ, and one common mix-up involves RWZ, a format tied to Outlook rule exports, so email-origin files are likely RWZ, while assets from 3D or web-3D workflows are usually proper WRZ files.

A .WRZ being called a "Compressed VRML World" means the file is just a VRML world—commonly stored as .WRL, where the extension means *world*—that’s been shrunk using gzip for easier storage or earlier web transfer, as VRML’s text-based scene description (objects, textures, lighting, cameras, and sometimes animations) compresses extremely well, resulting in conventions like naming such files .wrl.gz or .wrz.

Practically speaking, calling it a "compressed VRML world" tells you to treat the file like a gzip stream first so it can expand into a .WRL readable by VRML/X3D-compatible tools, and one easy technical check is whether the file begins with the gzip signature the bytes 1F 8B, which strongly indicates you’re dealing with a real gzipped VRML file and not a different format that only looks similar by extension.

Opening the VRML "world" (the .WRL extracted from a .WRZ) reveals a scene graph made of typed nodes that define visuals and movement, built from Transform/Group hierarchies controlling transforms, beneath which Shape nodes combine geometry like IndexedFaceSet with appearance nodes such as Material and ImageTexture, along with typical environment elements including Viewpoint camera spots, NavigationInfo settings, Background coloring or sky textures, optional Fog, and even Sound.

VRML’s interactivity uses Sensor nodes like ProximitySensor to send events, animations build on TimeSensor plus the Position/Orientation/Color/Scalar interpolators that provide time-based outputs, and ROUTE links connect everything, while complex behaviors rely on Script nodes with VRMLScript/JavaScript or occasional Java, and Anchor nodes allow hyperlink-like navigation, with the specification distinguishing transform-affected nodes from non-spatial ones such as interpolators, NavigationInfo, TimeSensor, and Script, giving the world the character of a small interactive program rather than a simple 3D model.

Calling a .WRZ a "Compressed VRML World" means the file isn’t a unique format but a standard VRML world (.WRL) stored as gzip to shrink download/storage size from the early web-3D period, leaving the VRML text intact—shapes, textures, lights, viewpoints, navigation, and simple behaviors—just packaged in gzip and signaled with .wrz or .wrl. If you liked this article and you would like to get additional data relating to WRZ file application kindly take a look at the web page. gz, as noted by references like the Library of Congress, which is why 7-Zip/gzip opens it and why identifying the gzip 1F 8B bytes helps confirm it’s really gzipped VRML.