Wow, there's been a VRML sighting! As an old dude, VRML reminds me of the worst of 90s web hype. Trying to leave that aside, I also don't think it has a lot going for it to keep it around as a format.
I prefer the even simpler Wavefront OBJ format as a scratch format. It's about as printf-compatible as it gets and is supported in many more places than VRML.
Good point, but unfortunately in wavefront .obj there is no "elevation mesh" alike object, so it's a bit more complex than this, but still not too hard.
Btw while VRML as a plugin and the idea of a 3D web sounds now 90s, the data format itself is too bad.
I prefer the even simpler Wavefront OBJ format as a scratch format. It's about as printf-compatible as it gets and is supported in many more places than VRML.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefront_.obj_file