3D GUI Project

Qbertino writes: "A guy that calls himself "matrixnan" introduced this project on NANs Blender homepage. It's gonna be a GPLd 3D GUI for Linux using Blender as construction kit. Blender is a professional freeware 3D Animation/Modelling/Applicationkonstruction kit that features Python as Plugin language (Plugins are a big deal in the 3D business). Coding of the Project uses/will use Python, C and C++. Unlike the 3Dsia project it sticks more closely to the 3rd person perpective of the classical Desktop and avoids going to deep into VR and the acompanied problems. It uses NANs reference grade 3D construcion kit and seems to be on its way quite well - and thus will probably see usability quite soon. Also take a look at some serious eye candy - the screens." I'm a little more skeptical about time frames for actually being able to run this thing, but there are lots of interesting ideas to think about.

Comments

Re:From the world of pointless GUI's

[dennisp]

I know this isn't what you were talking about, but check out this and this. *Laugh*

Sounds so easy...

[Jeremy Lee]

Having recently spend two weeks building an ultimately unsucessful 3D database visualization system, (Java3D rocks!) I can tell you it's a LOT harder than it sounds, a bit like speech recognition.

The main problem is that there is no consistent paradigm for 3D interaction... no equivalent of a desktop metaphor. Users find themselves lost in space. And such systems are hard to interact with properly with a 2D screen and mouse - the missing degree of freedom create a 'modal' system that cannot be intuitive.

But, if you have to do it, here are Orinoco's tips:

1: Make everything about 20% transparent. You can't work with half the environment hidden behind the other half.

2: View control is the key. Don't make the user have to spin and rotate. Let them pick objects of interest, and then move the camera to a good view of it.

3: Don't try to model a complete 3D environment. Instead, make it "2.5D", with the extra dimension used to express an intrisic scalar quantity rather than a spatial one. eg: A 2-D scatterplot, but each point is instead a bar who's height indicates something.

4: Create a 'groundplane'. Stick to stacking things above this.

5: A 'recursive boxes' scheme, with whole new scenes hidden inside pickable objects works well. (A folder metaphor, if you will)

Just consider the most effective 3D application yet - 3D modelling. Even with a perfect 1:1 correspondence between the visual representation and the underlying model, it still takes experts to manipulate the interface.

Frankly, I think 3D interfaces have to wait until we have cheap and available 3D input devices.

Finally, there's a lot of research that has been done (SIGGRAPH, to name a source) that you would be silly to ignore.

Sounds really intuitive, no no, really.

[James_G]

C3D will use a 4 button mouse with mouse wheel as the standard mouse. The user emulates this four button mouse with a 3 button mouse with a mouse wheel by clicking the middle and right buttons at the same time

I'm sorry, but this just sounds ridiculous to me. User interfaces are pretty badly designed as it is, adding more mouse buttons doesn't solve anything. It just makes it worse.

Some time ago, someone posted a link to a site discussing user interface design, which discussed some of the great ideas and concepts that are simply ignored. For example, what are the 4 locations on the screen to which you can move the mouse very fast? The 4 corners.. Windows makes use of this to some degree, with the close gadget in the top right, and the start button in the bottom left, but this is useless when windows are not maximized.

Perhaps a bigger problem in this scenario is that of the menus within these windows. If they're not maximized, then to get to the menu in each window you have to click in a different location every time. This is very non-intuitive. I personally love the system on the Amiga workbench, where holding down the right mouse button anywhere inside the app would bring down the previously invisible menu at the top. Since it was at the edge of the screen, you could move and select a menu item very quickly. I'd love to see this system implement again, but I haven't yet.

Oops, kind of got a bit off topic there. I guess my point is, people who design user interfaces should really be looking at some of the great useability studies that have been done, and start implementing them before they concentrate on the eye-candy.

Much more than a GUI!

[bellings]

Also on their webpage:

We will eliminate the need for a refresh button by having a sophisticated internal update file system.

CmdrTaco, you should be ashamed. This isn't just a 3D GUI project by any strech of the imagination -- they're also writing a brand new file system. I can't wait!

And I see they've also developed a special "DWIM" (Do What I Mean) technology, too:

if you had folders that were not in view just move your cursor down to the bottom edge of the display box and the folder you want would automatically scroll up to your cursor.

Wow! I hope they get a patent on that, before Microsoft steals it from them!