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Simon Phipps Looks At 'Looking Glass'
CitizenC writes "Simon Phipps, chief technology evangelist for Sun Microsystems, describes his experiences using Project Looking Glass, Sun's prototype three-dimensional computer desktop, in this post on his weblog. He mentions a couple of demo videos too."
It all depends on finding a terse and intuitive gesture mechanism through which the interface may be navigated. I think my preferred approach would be to present the nominal view of the user's desktop as though it were the interior of a hemisphere, wherein all of the various windows and widgets reside, as though they were affixed to the interior of this sphere. Then, a simple move of the mouse rotates the sphere along the X and Y axis, and when finally something of interest is in view, you either click or use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom in and make it the active window.
Kind of like a big virtual desktop, only you get to peek at what's over the horizon.
From the given picture, it doesn't appear that they're doing this though. It seems as though all of the objects have transformation matrices that are independent of one another, and without any common point of reference, which suggests an elaborate interface.
But as they say, it's a prototype.
We do need to do something about windows. It's been twenty years already. We should be better than this. Is the answer to display them at funky angles? I'm not sure. But it's nice to see that somebody somewhere is trying, even if the whole exercise is about nothing more than moving Sun's price on the market.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I could look at it and go
"this is UNIX! I know this!"
I saw a 3D video display at the CEATEC conference back a few months ago here in Tokyo. Several makers were showing them off, but they really weren't anything to write home about. I guess it was cool enough that they were able to display a 3 dimensional object or scene with only 2 dimensions, but it's hard to see what the practical use of something like that would be outside of "You're my only hope" type messaging.
Likewise, 3 dimensional computer desktops are not going to be taking over the world anytime soon. It is hard enough teaching people to use the mouse correctly in two dimesions. Trying to wrap people's heads around a 3 dimensional workspace looks to be virtually impossible.
I have been pwned because my
A mouse should be enough. Scroll wheels-- or perhaps even a four-directional switch near the scroll wheel-- could be used for additional axis control.
"Why Subscribe?" Good question...
I've always imagined people using something other than a monitor to view a 3d desktop and something other than a mouse to navigate it. Something Like VR glasses that could also track your eye movement, etc.
I don't find a 3d desktop using current interfaces that exciting, nor do I think it would be a boon to productivity. Sure does look purty though
The more dimensions you've got, the more places things can get lost -- this applies equally for car keys, lost souls, and music files. One of the beauties of a two dimensional windowing environment is it puts everything right up front where you can see it. A three dimensional environment creates the same problems I've already got in my house; things could be anywhere.
How long will it be before people using this environment spend an hour rummaging around for something they know they left somewhere, but turns out to be hidden behind some other item? It'll be just like today, when you spend two hours looking for you checkbook, wondering if you accidentally threw it out, and finally find it had fallen under your old hiking boots in the closet. I get quite enough 3D at home, thank you. I think I'll pass on using it for my windowing manager.
Add to this that, in the absence of 3D goggles, everything in 3D is going to appear annoyingly false. And while I bet goggles will be amazing for games and certain specific applications, I don't want my day-to-day working environment to gratuitiously throw in an extra dimension I don't need. It's just one more thing to keep track of. And at the risk of sounding like an old man, the sample screen shot looks like something that would give me a massive headache if I had to deal with it all day.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Sun graphics hardware uses intelligent FBRAM (framebuffer RAM). The transparency calculations are handled by the video memory chips themselves, so you need only write the alpha you want, then pixblt the data to memory instead of the read/blend/write cycle.
You might want to read the paper titled FBRAM: A new Form of Memory Optimized for 3D Graphics
You know, I like Java technology. If it weren't for the existence of Java, we'd never have this push towards writing user space software in higher-level languages that run on virtual machines. As a productivity aid to engineers, I think it's one of the best advances of the past decade.
However, although Schwartz demo'd some clever technology, it was not very flattering. First of all, it has a little bit of the "me too" syndrome, considering that Mac OS X already has some nice eye candy that uses the same techniques: fast compositing and scaling, to run videos in an icon; translucent windows; windows that easily shift and scale without losing clarity (Expose). Heck, Microsoft demo'd their "me too" six months ago with early images of Longhorn.
Second, was it really necessary to spend the whole time bashing the "dominant" operating system provider. Believe me, I'm no fan of Microsoft, but this anti-Microsoft schtick of Sun's is becoming tiresome, unflattering, and it's not helping their stock price.
I just wish McNealy would try to compete by being better, not by complaining or firing barbs. Frankly, Sun has not been delivering great software technology for several years, so to come at it this way seems very unprofessional. Bummer, too, 'cause I really want to see Sun (and Java) succeed.
Can you believe it that was OpenOffice.org in the screenshot, and not Sun's own StarOffice.
The way I see it even Sun knows the future is in Opensource, after all it is their advanced software lab using openoffice instead of staroffice.
Signature? why do I need such a silly thing. If It makes me think, I don't want one.
Ely Alvarado If you remember a nice signature imagine it here
It's largely written with Java (proving for once and for all that there's no inherent performance gap for Java applications) and makes good use of the integrated Java support in JDS.
It's nice to see that Java is to the point where Sun will use it for desktop projects. It has taken a lot longer than some of us hoped, but certainly better late than never!
JDK/JRE 1.5 should bring additional significant performance improvements...
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
The other link in the blog posting is to a better video in MPEG-4...
When you try to display something in three dimensions on a monitor, not only does it not really exist, but your brain can't deal with it. Watch computer game novices (and some experts!) try to lean their head around to peek round a corner playing a FPS game. See how quickly most people get motion sick watching someone else play a game. It's all because the visuals are faking 3D and our eyes & brain can't deal.
A 3D desktop is not going to be a feasible reality until we have a feasible 3D display to draw it on. Only if/when hologram or 3D-projection displays become a reality will there be a useful case for a desktop to match; in the meantime, this just adds unnecessary complexity to the 2D desktop.
From the video (yay, I managed to snatch it before /. wave propagated), it runs really smooth - they have netscape and two movie players running and it all happens with no lagging as the guy rotates the whole thing around in 3D (and when you look at it from the back, the movie is mirrored and still plays smooth). I wonder what kind of machine it is the whole thing is happening on.
Another thing i'm impressed by is that it didn't seem ackward the way they were using it - i remeber trying some other 3D wms on X, and they were all pretty bad from usability point. This introduces 3D in a way where it solves problem of organizing apps on the desktop instead of creating new problems. I'm amazed and think this is a step in the right direction.
One of the programs that was really the visual inspiration behind the framework presented in my doctoral thesis was 3Dtop http://www.majorgeeks.com/download186.html
A review is given at the link I have provided, but this program was really the marvel of simplicity. It is only 356 KB (yes k), and truly converts all the files and folders on you computer into a 3D space.
If you are ready to re-INTERPRET what you normally store in a folder of file, so that it now fits this visual space, it is extrememly powerful.
For a person just starting off, the novelty of 3Dtop wears off pretty quickly because you easily get lost, and it looks just like eye candy, but if you REinterpret what the folders and files should contain, it becomes a very very powerful cognitive space.
Please don't flame me if you don't understand what I am saying, but as a last point, I would like to mention that as our cognitive space (displayed in the electronic space on the desktop) has no real correspondence to physical 3D space, it becomes hard to impose "laws" (like physical laws) and hence the electronic space almost becomes infinite, and really disorienting. One way to build laws is to recognize that (in Windows) the Desktop itself is a folder, which contains My Computer, which has the C:\ drive, which has windows, which has Desktop again ... it is this Russian Doll like relationship between two Desktop views that provides the backbone for building the laws that are equivalent of the "physical space" for the electronic and cognitive space ....
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Just get Real Alternative - play real files without the mess.
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/mirror.htm
You can download the helix player. It is quite stable, and wonderfully free of crap.
Apparantly the "Looking Glass" demo (running on a little Sony Vaio) was one of the most popular demos at Comdex. I liked the desktop layout as well - very clean and simple, but amazingly flexible.
I think it's pretty obvious what they've done - just turn each window into a texture map, then project that in a 3D environment. That's why they can flip the windows, have multiple copies etc running very smoothly (3D accelerated), and also why you can do alpha blending very easily, or have the entire backdrop being a 3D projection (eg 360 degree world view.
This is probably using the OpenGL wrappers in Java... Sun will be feeding the "looking glass" technology into the Java Desktop System over the next 6-12 months. They weren't originally going to be so agressive, but due to the huge interest, they said they decided to accelerate the schedule. One nice side benefit of this becoming a "must have" is that the 3D cards guys will probably get more serious about doing proper, complete OpenGL drivers for Linux (the current situation ain't that great).
Like some of the others here, I do wonder just how productive it would be, but it didn't seem hard to use at all. It does give Linux (and Unix since it can run on Solaris too) a very nice wow factor - the Sun guys gave it a kinda "who cares about waiting a few years for Longhorn, here's what you can do today!". Will help dispell the bad perception that Linux has for desktop use.
PS The original demo was written by a guy in Sun Japan in his spare time. Yep, a real demo...
I've seen this in the flesh and was lucky enough to play with it. (Friend is an employee of Sun)
It does sound like some of you didn't even bother to RTFA. One of the points of the 3d desktop is to make it easier to find your windows. Your not going to lose your windows with this technology.
I think it also shows that Sun is still trying to innovate, frankly that should be applauded. Besides, it looks way cool!
I think 3D GUIs may have some good purpose, but the problem is that until now they have mostly been applied to things that just work better in 2D.
The clearest example of this is exploding menu-style choices from a 2D list that is easy to scan quickly and accurately with your eye into some 3D "infospace."
Imagine going to a restaurant where, instead of a paper menu of the food options in front of you, all of the waiters in the restaurant, each holding a big sign with the name of one menu item on it, form a big circle around you and you have to turn in your chair around to view each one.
Restaurants have been around for a long time and I don't know of any that work that way.
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