3D File Manager on Linux Wins NSF Prize

MadFarmAnimalz writes "Science Magazine's reporting on the results of the NSF's Science and Engineering Visualisation Challenge and the first prize in the Illustrations category has been claimed by the Innolab 3D File Manager, which was developed on linux. Apparently this involves arranging data in a ferris wheel type structure." The data is arranged by its relationship with its content, rather than by its physical position on a hard drive or its file system.

Comments

ls -R /

[SHEENmaster]

/: bin boot cdrom dev devs etc floppy home initrd lib lost+found media mnt music opt proc root sbin tmp usr var vmdebian vmlinux vmlinux26 /bin: arch bash cat chgrp chmod chown cp cpio csh date dd df dir dmesg dnsdomainname echo ed egrepe-- false fgconsole fgrep fuser grep gunzip gzexe gzip hostname kill ksh ln loadkeys login ls lspci mkdir mknod mktemp more mount mt mt-gnu mv nc netcat netstat pidof ping ps pwd rbash readlink rm rmdir run-parts rzsh sed setserial sh sleep stty su sync tar tcsh tempfile touch true umount uname uncompress vdir zcat zcmp zdiff zegrep zfgrep zforce zgrep zless zmore znew zsh zsh4

And the list goes on. One HELL of a ferris wheel.

Re:ls -R /

[M1FCJ]

because it works, fast and beats everything else?

Re:ls -R /

[Zeinfeld]

Since when did *any* O/S show files based on their physical location. Letssee I'll just go to cylinder 34, track 32, block 23 and pull up my pr0n...

I don't buy it

[Nurgled]

I'd have enough trouble interpreting that render (in the article) if it were made of real objects floating in front of me, but a 2D projection of it would just be hell.

It seems to me that the claim they make about the relationships not being displayable in 2D is false; the parent/child relationships are easy, and we've already got that sorted. The "related by some arbitrary, unspecified characteristic" (grey and yellow folders) can be represented by another pane in the 2D browser for "Things that are related to this elsewhere", which Windows XP already does for lots of its "special folders" as a substitute for actually putting them in a sensible heirarchy in the first place.

Re:3D GUIs?

[Glock27]

It's really cool and all, but don't you think this would be a slight waste of CPU or GPU power?

For an interactive system (the only place a file browser matters) the GPU is always completely available to service what you're looking at. It has no other function.

If you're not using it, it's just sitting there being a waste of space. The one valid point here, though, is that power consumption might be higher if you're using every bell and whistle.

Dock

[igabe]

In Mac OS X you can set the dock to magnify the programs your mouse is over.

This is how I am guessing this new 3D navigation works, by magnifying as you move around.

I turned my dock's magnification off. :-) The fact that list view has been here for so long should say something. People like lists where everything looks the same. Having things pop up from unreadable sizes out of nowhere seems a little unnatural.

I am inclined to say that the revolutionary idea that will change how we look at our computer desktop has not yet come.

Re:Dock

[BenjyD]

I think the magnification is meant to help by:

1) Providing reinforcement - "if you click now, you'll do this thing here, the one that's all magnified and obvious now"
2) Fitt's law - the button you're trying to click on gets bigger when you get near it, so it's easier to hit.

WTF?

[spoonist]

How is this easier to use than this?

I'm already storing data by topic. I use a concept commonly called "directories". For example, all my pr0n is held in the ~/pr0n directory all my tunes are held in the ~/Tunes directory and all my pictures are held in the ~/Pictures directory.

I haven't looked at data based on physical location in eons. I used to read data sector by sector off floppy drives. Yeah, that did suck. Data wasn't necessarily organized by topic. But since the advent of filesystems, I've been able to organize by topic through use of these so-called "directories".

uh, why the excitement?

[jpr1nd]

i don't see the big hubbub... this is an illustration prize. no one said this is a useful or even remotely useable filemanager. The screen snapshot the team submitted from the program is "visually striking," says panel of judges member Boyce Rensberger. the judging was on how their screenshot looked as far as i can tell. the runners up were a watercolor painting of a macrophage and the cover of a book. whoopee, a pretty filemanager.

Re:OT: 3d file manager

[digidave]

Have you ever used a 3D desktop? Maybe all the 3D desktops on Windows (try shellcity.net for a few links) are just bad implementations, but they are a lot more cumbersome to use. Remember that it's better to be able to launch apps quickly than it is to fit a million icons on a screen.

One Windows 3D desktop I remember was like Quake. You'd walk around this map and launch apps on the wall. To focus an app, you walk up to the wall and hit an action button. Cool, but not practical.

Another was a sort of empty 3D area with floating icons and a ground as a reference point so you don't get lost. The floating icons were just cubes with the 2D icon textured on each side, but it was functional. The trouble was that you either ended up organizing all these 3D icons within your field of vision as if it was a 2D desktop or you wasted half your time turning around and flying towards whichever icon you wanted to click on.

Any 3D desktop that works will have to be extraordinarily revolutionary just to be useable.

Re:OT: 3d file manager

[typobox43]

Why do you have to write code and documentation to be a member of the free software community? A few people willing to do some "tech support" (i.e. answering questions) on a free software project's mailing list or message board can be invaluable to the general public's satisfaction with the project. It allows the developers to focus their energies on development, while still providing some modicum of help to those who need it. Many people are citizens of the United States. A lot of them don't vote in elections. Does that make them not be a citizen? How about those who don't work in politics? Are they not citizens?

Re:OT: 3d file manager

[dollargonzo]

anti-aliasing is not pseudo analog, it increases the effective resolution.

that is pseudo analog. analog would be infinite resolution!