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Review Of 3D Web Browsers
shelflife points to this very intersting article on the 3D Web browsers in Scientific American. He writes that of the 3D systems mentioned, "A Swiss company, Geonova (www.geonova.ch), seems to demonstrate best that the idea of a geography-based Web is feasible with today's PCs. Engineers there created two impressively detailed models of Switzerland--one of the entire nation with 25-meter resolution and another of two central cantons at 50-centimeter resolution. .. Text and iconic labels hovered quite legibly above towns, lakes, companies and tourist attractions; clicking on the labels opened associated Web pages. What other 3D browsers are there -- VRML plugins have been around a while -- yet they do not seem to be successful. Why is that?"
Web-based communication is largely interpreted, as opposed to compiled. Are there any successful examples of high-performance interpreted 3D out there?
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
I think VRML failed because it was not as easily understood by the mass market. Anyone and their dog can set up a HTML page, and they usually do, but to do a VRML page they have to use a computing metaphor that most consumers and even geeks can't understand.
Interior Decorating.
What is it? You can't ask a geek to make you a stylish personal home on the web. Its just not feasable because they spent their lives reclusively, with clutter all over the room and with clean elegance on the paper products they make. Sure there is an elite few who can make WAD files already, but they cannot easily pass this knowledge on to the masses.
Speaking of WADs, there is the difficulty in scripting events in VRML. You need a plug-in for a static language that doesn't even offer realistic doors or interaction with monsters. Where's the fun in a 10 meg download that doesn't even offer you a gun or sword or knife? VRML came out about the same time as games which for the first time offered Deathmatch mode, so it was sadly feature-poor for its size.
If they could re-make VRML as a familiar XML-style language with some support for java and javascript, then all you would need is a good Frontpage equivalent and free interior decorating or painting courses on the web.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
well maybe so but the thing that would be good about having the ability to run around a little town like that would be getting to know the place.
if I had the option to run through the streets of a city, and get to know where the places to go are located physically I would like it. Then when I go upto the city for a night out - I would know where most of the businesses are, and would have more options as to what to do on a night - especially if I had never been to that city before.
but I would still want the traditional style of browsing... and be able to "teleport" to the front of a business in the 3d environ.
I think that it will have larger implecations as well - people would correlate brick-and-mortar with cyberspace a bit better, as you would see where a company is (or how a city is) without having to be there.
so - in conclusion I would love to have the opportunity to travel through virtually - and what would be interesting is to run through the streets and see all the other people on that street and be able to talk to them. just like a MMORPG.
It's not just the web. Why do people still watch 2D movies and read 2D books? Why are so many top seller computer games 2D (SimCity, Civilization, Roller Coaster Tycoon)?
Your eyes view the world in 2D (plus depth), not full 3D. Monitors are 2D. Trying to stuff a 3D world through a 2D pipe means you lose data. For example, unless you're a hyperdimensional being, you can't see what's behind something without rearranging the data. It's "cool" but it's also a pain at times. If there's no good need/benefit for 3D, then using 3D is often worse than the 2D version. Most everything I do on the web doesn't benefit from 3D. I'd rather get the 2D version.
Read Jakob Nielsen for more thoughts on 3D vs. 2D.
- Amit
"Grok" is not a real word. It comes from Heinlein's sci-fi book "Stranger in a Strange Land" where, conveniently, it was never really defined (because it was a "martian" word). It has commonly been defined as "getting it".
Unfortunately, "getting it" isn't very well-defined either. Most people seem to define "getting it" or "grokking it" as "agreeing with me." For instance:
VRML didn't grok "cyberspace"
VRML didn't agree with my idea of "cyberspace"
So although the "Why not VRML" post is pretty intelligent, use of the word "grok" by the post's author and a number of other 'geeks' is not. Rather, 'grok' has become merely a euphamistic way to cover the arrogance of the person who is using the word.
I am not sure if it is true 3D or just isometric, but eventually everyone will have their own personalized eHouse, as opposed to a webpage.
The Sims Online is basically just that, an massively multiplayer online world, where people can build their own houses, and live virtual alternate lives as criminals, playboys, doctors, etc...
You can bet The Sims Online will become the next killer app for the internet. Just as the other killer apps (chat rooms, email, instant messaging) appeal to a large audience, The Sims appealed/appeals to a large audience. Making the game massively multiplayer is obviously the next level to take the game to, and Will Wright is the man for the job.
Everquest was too geeky for the mainstream, and chat rooms are too boring... The Sims Online? Now thats going to make allot of money!
The reason why 3D web browsers have not taken off is because 3D adds absolutely no value whatsoever to the activity of web browsing. To answer why, let's consider the broader question of: Why isn't interactive 3D everywhere? (ie- not just browsers)
The answer is that a spatial representation adds value only when you have spatial relationships that you can load with meaning. The meaning is part of the browsing task at hand, which means that the spatial relationships must be set-up case-by-case for each type of task that someone wants to do. One of the few situations that don't require special setup are where the task is no more than real spatial navigation - like an action game or a CFD stream function.
If you change the axes of the coordinate system from (Right,Up,Back) to (Manufacturer,Price,Item) then you now have some spatial relationships that are loaded with meaning ("higher" means "more expensive"). But you have a "space" that is no longer intuitively navigable. This is not to say that it is difficult to get around in, but that it is diffuclt to know where you are. When you find something that looks interesting, some careful thought is needed to figure out what it is that you've found in the source data. A trivial example, to be sure, but the problem becomes worse the more complicated the dataset is. (And you'd think that's where you'd need 3D the most.)
Web sites are organised by topic and if you can organise all the topics of human knowledge using only 3 spatial axes and still keep it navigable, then you've achieved what no-one else knows how to do. That is why 3D web browsing has not taken off. (There is an arbitrary relationship between physical server location and topics stored on it.)
As an aside, UI is a big issue too because it is easier for your brain to make sense of the space around it when you can physically turn your head to see everything around you. Another reason why a little monitor window in front of you is not going to blow anybody away. (Q3A excepted)
Life's a buffer; you can only get out of it what you put into it! C:-)
Ignoring the low-level implementation details (i.e. specification language, size, performance) which affect user experience in obvious ways, there much more basic issues when it comes to 3D as a user interface.
Lets be sure we're asking the right questions. The most important question is what task is this 3D 'technology' supposed to support.
There are three common types of interaction with system data:
1) Visualization - Seeing the data in an organized fashion
2) Manipulation - Changing the data in some way
3) Navigation - Getting from one piece of data to another
Using 3D often aids in visualization. The two main reasons to use 3D here are when: 1) there's a 3D spatial relationship between the data (molecules) or 2) an additional dimension is useful to see a pattern. Remember that 2D is a subset of 3D and having the 3rd dimension does allow one to convey more information. Perhaps the biggest 'problem' with 3D visualization is occlusion. But if you're using 3D correctly, then the reason you're using 3D is BECAUSE of the information occlusion conveys. If occlusion is bad thing for a particular visualization, then a 2D view will likely be better.
Manipulating 3D objects is often informative because you can look at the dataset from different sides. Defining the view of 3D objects is very natural for people (like when we turn a skull around in our hands). Defining which slice of the data, using a search or coordinate criteria is often harder. So 3D is often good for manipulation.
There are some very good and pretty bad things about 3D when the tasks are to visualize and manipulate data. But the nightmare comes when one attempts to navigate data. There's a reason we like TV and movies: we don't have to physically move to get the information we're interested in. And this is where 3D apps fail in supporting users' tasks. They usually force people to physically fly through the data to get to a related, or even totally unrelated, piece of information. The alternative is to 'teleport' people to the next bit of interesting information. However, as anyone who's fallen asleep in one place and woken up in another can attest to, teleportation is an extremely disorienting experience. So this is the fatal flaw of 3D displays: flying through the data is bad, but teleporting is bad.
Conclusion
So I think 3D can be useful in supporting visualization and manipulation tasks. But it is incredibly bad for navigating through data. Most 3D web projects emphasize navigation, and this is where they fail. Applications using 3D can succeed if they concentrate on what they do best, visualization and, to a lesser extent, manipulation of data. Navigation tasks should be left to the 2D world.
Vanguard
passetspike!