Slashdot Mirror
3D Sphere Interface for XP
Brian Brian writes "I found this super cool 3D, inside a sphere, desktop interface. The videos really demonstrate it. I would love this built into OS X but it is just for Windows right now. And if nothing else, the paradigm is the coolest way to handle multiple screens." Here are a
collection of screenshots & videos. I'm skeptical that it wouldn't be very practical, but it sure looks fun.
XP is slow enough as it is...and now we want to do all kinds of useless fancy junk with this kind of window manager?
It looks like someone saw Minority Report one time too many.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
First of all, the modeling in OS X would be sorely stunted due to the limitations of the UNIX backend. Apple really took a step backwards when they made OS X because they tried to abandon the original interfaces and paradigms that so many of us loved from the original MacOS days. OS X is too limited for this in the same way Linux is - Windows just has better rendering and gaming capabilities, and it really shows with this.
:)
Secondly, I can see some practicality in it. For example, if you can read the slanted boxes, you can take advantage of some additional space on the desktop with some creative maneuvering of the windows. Whether it's worth it or not is another story, but at least it's a cool knick knack to play with for a while.
Finally, anybody that uses "paradigm" really shouldn't be posting on a "news for nerds" site. It's... it's just unnatural
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Before someone comes forth with a, "It must be hosted on an XP!" har har joke, can anyone supply a link to a mirror? Why oh why are slower links not mirrored??? Pay attention, Slashdot owners: this is ridiculous!
A blog like any other.
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2F www.hamar.sk%2Fsphere%2Fscreenshots.htm
This was posted months ago, although I haven't checked it out in a while, back then it was neat, but impractical.
I've tried SphereXP, even implemented my own 3D desktop before that.
The problem with it is that it's not about function, but flair.
In short, try something else, preferably something which doesn't include the ability to rotate windos around their own axels.
FP? Site's down ...
People can't seem to get over these things, yet i've seen them a thousand times!
http://li3-33.members.linode.com/~sunny/slashdot-m irror/www.hamar.sk/sphere/screenshots.htm
if the bandwidth gets out of hand, I'll shut this mirror down
Sunny Dubey
Saw this a lonnnnng time ago. Installed XP just to try it. What I found :
-Extreme resource hog
-The designer knows nothing about UI design (so many different actions, even if you can customize the controls. Needs to be simplified)
-It's ugly.
-You can't even use the windows while they're in "3D " mode
Just a poor windows developer trying to make some competition to Looking Glass. It's too bad, because it'll never work, unless MS does it and integrates it into their OS. (It would probably be really buggy coming from them though. I hate to say it, but I'm looking to Sun for the first 3D desktop)
Clippy the office paper clip... NOW IN 3D!
http://www.sandstorming.com
... suck spheres.
*cough*
Don't blame me -- I voted for Roslin.
It's nice eye candy but I really don't see how this will make a user more efficient as it seems to be distracting (just more ammo for those with ADD). I do find Windowmaker's multiple workspaces to be a great boon though but it's not XP.
Trolling is a art,
I was in the middle of checking out the site, then the story went live for non-paying members and the server just stopped responding.
This is crazy...I think slashdot is being BillGatesed. I see nothing but Gates of Borg on the front page!
Is it because of movies that we are so obsessed with 3D desktops? My monitor is 2D and my mouse is 2D (maybe 2 1/2 if you want to count the scroll button as zoom). If I had a holographic display and a mouse that I can move x,y, and z then I would think about it.
and the screen shots page won't last much longer either But here's the Mirrot Dot Link in case you missed it
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Not quite.
I just lost my textpad window... maybe I'm floating over it.
Very strange experience this is!
Tried it last night, actually, while I was playing with my desktop.
It's a fun theory tool and shows you exactly what SUN was going for in Project Looking Glass. However, when it comes down to it, it has no current practical application. Windows are stored in the sphere, not used in it, which means that everytime you want to recover an open window, you need to go into sphere mode, look arounnd for the window, find it, and then bring it back to flat mode. It adds a whole extra step to the process, and definitely a lot more time.
I think the best improvement may be interaction with windows inside the sphere, but as the website proclaims, this project is still in Beta.
Best,
- Brandon
Mirror on Majorgeeks: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4222.html
You may cal this flamebait, but still, I don't see any news here; isn't this a dupe?
Besides, I don't think I'm eager to get a BIG server just to support 3D desktop rendering on X terminals
http://ltsp.org/
Anyhow, I hope they have improved it, as I had it installed just for the *neat* factor, and the damn thing would always start up whenever I booted into XP. I use windows so little, I didnt bother tracking down where the start up processes were, but it wasnt in the norm HKEY/LOCALM...BLAHBLAH. It was very buggy too. Even 3d desktop is cool, but then again, no real use. I cant even manage my own projects, much less 3d windows flying around.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/14/214020 3&tid=189&tid=190
Hey look, it was also posted by CmdrTaco.
I like it. The one comment I have from watching the videos is that it seems a bit obnoxious the way the you restore a window to normal size. The windows zoom all the way in (fullscreen) and then restore themselves - instead of simply zooming to the appropriate size.
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
As slashbots we can only like fancy GUIs if they are for Macs.
It's a pretty interesting application that I've installed and still kept. The idea is pretty decent - for someone who considers himself a power user of the computer, the allowance of a much larger (albeit virtual) desktop allows for the more efficient use of space and extends the ability to multitask visually (beyond XP's standard taskbar).
It's pretty cool to show it to the people you know as well... It's interesting to flip and twirl windows (which I believe are just snapshots of your windows) around in a 3D globe, and the background pictures (360 degrees) are a nice touch.
Experience My virus scanner, pop up blocker, IE Tool Bar Spyware, Spyware scanner all in 3D glory.
Got Code?
but what REAL practicality does this have? what's gonna happen to your window management when you have 50+ windows open in you sphere and one of your windows/apps starts misbehaving?
osx could have something like this if aqua were to use/borrow the QTVR technology. spherical distortion of windows is easy when your view point is always from the center(?)... the genie effect and exposé already work quite well for staking and layering of windows.
this alos looks like it has similarities to sun's looking glass, 2d window is active, 3d window that is "pushed away" is in active, or behind the active window... time will tell if this is a new metaphor, or just a graphic extention of the desktop metaphor.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4222.html
It's nice to see that people spend so much time trying to make an OS as awful as XP LOOK nice. If you want to be an artsy bastard, get a Mac. Me, I use Linux... and I think I'll stick to my 3d-desktop thank you.
LOL, mod Jesus up. I didn't think I would say that today.
Who needs a 3d Sphere Interface for XP. We already have that SWEET "Bliss" green hilltop desktop and totally awesome start menu on the default theme!
I tried it out when it was first posted on Slashdot of spring of 2004. It was extremely impractical and had numerous flaws. It was susceptable to alt-tabbing for example. If you were going back and forth between windows a lot, you would occasionaly switch out of the gui and see your regular Windows destktop. Kinda kills the 3D effect right there.
If this is the interface I'm thinking it is (I cant confirm because the site is already down) the windows that are displayed in the 3d space aren't updated in real time...basically, the window manager takes a screenshot of the window and puts it up. This is great for static windows, like a file listing, but doesn't do any good if I'm chatting on Gaim or watching a movie.
When their numbers dwindled from 50 to 8, the dwarves began to suspect Hungry.
This is getting rediculous. Posters should now be required to setup a mirror before they link to these small websites. At least use coral or mirrordot or something, thats what they are there for.
http://www.thelung.org
The site has now been /.'ed O well, time to wait now.
This looks a lot like 3d desktop, but ontop of the desktop instead of the black background.
Something to do with the fourth MS article in a row?
Meanwhile, in "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters," GCC has a wiki! woo hoo!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This is like, what, the 5th story in a row dealing with Microsoft and/or Windows. The f$cking borg have landed. Prepare to be assimulated.
Didn't take long for that to get slashdotted..
Grr, can't browse that site with Opera.
It's serving me octet streams for its web pages, so it asks me to download them.
Firefox got confused on http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/ as well -- "document contains no data".
Even the default Apache settings get these basic things right. *sigh*
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I would love this built into OS X but it is just for Windows right now.
Can someone explain how this differs in any way from trolling? Several recent article summaries have had provocative comments like this attached. Is it an intentional attempt to drive up discussion rates, or are CmdrTaco, Hemos and michael just getting bored with vanilla Slashdot (where users make up their own minds after RTFA, not before)?
Do you even bother with dupe checks anymore?
Stuff.
Sorry, I only grab one page deap on stories but you can see the thumbnails:
e enshots.htm
e x.html
http://slashdot.fluky.org/www.hamar.sk/sphere/scr
Also their main page:
http://slashdot.fluky.org/www.hamar.sk/sphere/ind
I confess to not looking at the software demo but if all it does is provide a greater surface area on which you place icons then there is absolutely no benefit to having it in 3D.
Having a spherical desktop does not make it any easier to find your files since there is no point of reference.
I saw the looking glass demo a long time ago, and even this does not go as far as it should.
If you imagine a 3d terrain, preferably photographic, with recognisable features as your desktop picture, you could place files in the distance or in the foreground and they would scale automatically in relation to their depth within the 'picture'. Now it wouldn't matter how small the icon was or even whether it was so distinguishable from the next one. The point is I would more easily remember which one it was because of WHERE it was - on the rocky outcrop to the left of the farmhouse.
A 3D sphere does not give you this frame of reference.
And if they mirrored the pictures, you'd see a hundred OMFG DON'T CLICK PARENT LINK IT'S A GOAT.CX LINK! posts, when in actual fact they're tubgirl links ... or harlequin baby links ... or (gasp) links to some right-wing fundamentalist site trying to save your soul for Jebus and GWB.
You can tell it's tuesday, right?
The links aren't going to work but you can get the idea from the thumbnails Google image search
Slashdot == DDOS
Hehe, windowsXP with an interface that chugs it down, slows down the user, and STILL has no decent file system?
;)
Sounds like someone beat MS to longhorn
...
It looks like Sun's 3-D demo of Java Desktop (it was on Slahdot a while ago, but too lazy to find link).
cuz my mirror is going down .... heh
went to RTFA, and its already slashdotted! next target! :P
NOT :)
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the future of UIs and the lack of new paradigms (besides the somewhat lame 3D extension of current window managers).
I think that we are in a situation with a lot to do with the early renaissance: before Piero della Francesca and he's works on perpective, drawings and paintings did not used perspective. At all.
Some years later, perspective became part of the pictorial language, and it was used to express things in a new way.
I believe that we need a paradigm shift in UI that will permit us enhance our capability to express (to transmit information).
What do I mean? I think that adding 3D to our desktops is cool (albeit, I'd prefer true 3D, not projected 3D), but it will demand a NEW way to give information to the user
mod me up scottie!
http://www.mirrordot.org/
Since the site was slashdotted before it was even posted to non-subscribers you can go here if you want to download it:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4222.html
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
OK, kudos for an interesting idea. But I don't see a lot of practacal application of it.
I'm all for modifying the desktop, but I don't think this model is going to really solve any problems. Cool stuff is all fun and good, but in the end for something like this you have to address and solve a problem. Fulfill a need.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Feel free to read the Slashdot FAQ so you understand why this is not done. It is related to this pesky copyright thing.
Could a better system be used? Surely. It's not an entirely trivial question though. And considering that not even dupes are checked for I believe this is quite far in the future.
this is uber old. this was on the screensavers when techtv wasn't g4
I've used it a bit - It's really nice - Or rather promising! ;)
;)
;)
I didn't use SphereXP for very long, as it wasn't very mature when I used it, but I found Spaces, which was pretty good - It's not exactly the same, but they both make use of our spacial memory - With spaces I could have 30+ windows open and have no problems at all navigating them
The only problem is that they are "images" of the window, and hence does not update once they are out of focus.
Plus, none of them support multiple screens, as far as I can remember - I use a dual screen setup right now, but I would still *love* to have it
I got interested in it after viewing demonstrations of Sun's Looking Glass (I think it's called) - now they updated in real time, but that was "built in"... Plus it was linux
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
This program has been around for ages, and you're just finding out about the POS NOW?
... and add a on-the-fly rewriting to append "nyud.net:8090" to the domainname of all posted links.
;)
Problem solved!
...now that you can...almost...use two-button mouse it's time to learn this new fancy 3D sphere UI!
...if someone could only make a hamsterball input device.
I think this would have loads of applications. Monitoring for instance. It would be nice to be running 18 different system monitors all in this interface and all you have to do to see other screens is move your mouse.
The only problem is, currently, the windows will not update while inactive. So for monitoring it would be kind of stupid to keep looking at the same second in time.
Bullish Machine Tzar
I really can't see why anyone would want this desktop. I'd rather my Windows worked smoothly and reliably rather than zooming around and giving me 3D interface action. It's not as if Microsoft themselves are doing pointless graphicsl effects on Windows....
BIYC Records
Actually I am always missing (and cannot find one) virtual desktops in Windows. I have gotten used to it from the Unix world (Gnome, Windowmaker, or any other WM) so much, it is a pain not having it in the rare cases that I use Windows. Anybody can make a recommendation (something not 3D-ish!)?
Roman Kennke
You can find a virtual desktop manager at Microsoft's Power Toys site.
Do you want help with that?
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Yanno, when I use Windows, I *do* feel like I'm in a sphere, just like one of those hamster balls.
You have a personal vendetta against this webpage or something? Why else link directly to the screenshot page man. Can't you guys at least have the deceny to locally cache the larger images or something? Pretty hard to read a story when it's dissapeared when there are no posts up.
Interesting, I saw something very much like this at the University of Illinois engineering open house about 2 years ago, except it was on OS X if memory serves, running opengl, and it was only a 3D file browser at the time, with the directories represented as 3D Islands in space and the files in them little objects on the islands... pretty neat.
Nominally, the game ends after you've captured all icons, but the semi-secretive 'Inner Demon' sequence allows you to win without completing such an arduous task.
A 14-day trial download is available; after the trial period has expired certain ships (including the array of 'Fuzzy Ones' such as the Platypus, Rubber Duck, and Fruit Bat') and features (such as saving the game) are disabled.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I can't see a 3D Desktop ever becoming the way we use computers while we're still using a 2D screen. The image is distorted so much that it becomes useless. Navigation in a 3D relm with a 2D input and display is cumbersome, and really ... the current desktop systems work pretty darn good. The modifications / enhancements that Apple have included in OS X are additionally helpful, though there are changes I would make.
... what am I missing?
The ability to put a window into the dock is pretty nice, though that section should be larger so the contents of the window are still recognizable, while shortcut icons are still small (16x16-ish).
To get more 'desktop space' we've tried bigger displays with higher resolution; multiple virtual desktops; multiple displays; parts of the desktop sliding in and out of view
What we really want is the ability to see everything that's going on at the same time without having to turn our head or move anything on the screen.
I think if there were a system like Expose with a central area for displaying the current window, we'd be there. That way you could have all your windows displayed miniturized and your primary window large in the center of the screen. You could still get information from the rest of your windows without having to switch to them or stop whatever it is you're working on.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Hmm, nice. But this is only for Windows XP. I still prefer Win2K...
Roman Kennke
waste of time and of CPU cycles. I wouldn't want to have my desktop look like that and if it is only for navigation between windows, we already have a good way of doing that. It's the same boring thing - mapping a 3D world onto a 2D screen. It works for games but has no real useful purpose as a desktop. 3D is not needed for handling lists, and that is what a desktop is - a list of things.
You can't handle the truth.
Multi User Desktop
i stumbled across their neat little program. it's actually pretty fast, and can be configured for both 2d and 3d.
the new version allows remote connectivity between computers, so you can use a desktop that is remotely connected to your server and control it like it's your computer. VNC/RFB and RDP protocols supported.
i personally am not a fan of multi-desktop software, but if you're looking into it, this is the one to check out for sure IMO.
At least, on my office 1.7Ghz 512MB-RAM notebook. The UI is absolutely unresponsive and eats over 90% of CPU.
I like the idea very much, though, and look forward to being able to pick windows out of virtual space. But this is just nowhere near ready for consumption.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Blech...*hiccup*...bleeeeeeechhhhhh
Used this desktop in the past and while exceedingly cool it's not particularley practical, but who care's about that this is a cool desktop to show off.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
http://download.softpedia.com/software/tweak/Spher eXP.0-81.exe
You can get on Softpedia and read about it if you want.
Or not.
JP
Stiny! Get me a danish!
This looks really neat but i assume that its just useless eyecandy. Just like transparent terminals, fading windows etc. If you look for a real window *manager* take a look at ion http://modeemi.cs.tut.fi/~tuomov/ion/. Doesn't look as nice but does some work for you instead of just impressing your friends.
I saw this maybe about a year ago, but the point is that I agree with many of the other posts: it is cool, yet impractical. Someone metioned a 3d landscape earlier, and I have also use some software which performs that function. I will tell you that it is a bit more useful, but it is still time consuming to find your icons and windows. The conclusion: Alt-Tab is the best thing right now.
BTW: http://www.3dna.net/ is the other software which I tried.
"Just a poor windows developer trying to make some competition to Looking Glass. It's too bad, because it'll never work, unless MS does it and integrates it into their OS. (It would probably be really buggy coming from them though. I hate to say it, but I'm looking to Sun for the first 3D desktop)"
That was exactly Microsoft's mentality (and mine at the time) when it came to IE. Now look at Firefox.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Here's a paper copy of the device:
O
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Navigating the 3D desktop may appeal to our spatial sensors better, but it's too cumbersome to wave the mouse around for windows all the time (especially for laptop users).
Instead, I think manufacturers should start adding buttons/knobs specifically for window navigation E.g. imagine the Griffin Power Knob for alt-tabbing. Or how about having the buttons in the taskbar line up with the F1-12 buttons on the keyboard, with F12 being "forward" or something. That would make the experience more intuitive and tactile.
It looks like the software uses screenshots to take snapsots of windows and then changes the background picture of your desktop to "Animate" the movment.
This is a true 3D desktop currently being worked on by SUN. I can not wait to play with it (NOTE: runs onlu on linux)...
Project home w/ pics and vids
Developer site w/ some doenloads
Monitoring for instance. It would be nice to be running 18 different system monitors all in this interface and all you have to do to see other screens is move your mouse.
Why would i need a 3d environment to do this? I already realtime monitor 50+ servers and network infrastructure in 2d.
All i currently have to do to move to another screen is move my mouse, or press a key combination (a lot quicker for me).
What benefit do i get from 3d? I get to tell my boss i really really need a new computer to do my monitoring? An old P-166 plus 17" crt plus 2d X with the right apps solves monitoring.
Not to mention that any real monitoring system will be paging you, not just displaying things to s screen. The only benefit of 3d is wow factor, maybe my boss will be more impressed by whirling stats and messages than easy to read scrolling messages.
ah, yes... another web server crippled by the hungry web community of slashdot...
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
I don't know why everyone here says that it has no practical uses.
I use this little piece of software at work, and it helps me a lot.
When I have multiple applications open (so many you cant see them on the taskbar easily) I switch to SphereXP. I can lay out the apps how I want them, and they simply push them back and pull them forward when I want. It works really well for me when I'm using multiple browswer windows, and yes I know FireFox uses internal tabs, but those too get out of hand when you have too many.
Anyway, I know it's not perfect, but it isn't totally useless.
This XP GUI will go the way of the IRIX "it's a unix system; I know this" 3D filesystem interface: unused forgotten obscurity. And along the way, MS will milk it for endless "we're innovators" propaganda.
--
make install -not war
"Here are a collection of screenshots & videos"
Another fine high-definition Dead Link brought to you by Slashdot!
This reminds me of the GGI Cube which did something similar. Sadly GGI is today rather irrelevant.
I've had this very idea before and think it would be great. Instead of a sphere, though, I'd think of being on the inside of a many-sided polygon.
I'm not sure which would be more valuable, a multi desktop or a multi monitor paradigm, perhaps both, or all three -- multiple desktops within a polygon, some desktops spanning multiple polygon faces, and perhaps a multiple polygon paradigm as well. It gets kind of trippy if you start thinking of how you would implement this with multiple physical monitors.
Anyway, they all require that you be able to see and interact with all visble sphere faces simultaneously, as well as being able to change your virtual camera's pan/zoom/angle and field of view. Navigating the polygon might be the hardest part, although it could be made easier with commands to make your camera centered and perpendicular to a polygon face or faces.
I think this is a really great idea. There's limits to how many physical monitors you can have, and windows are unfortunately fixed resolution, so tiling them doesn't accomplish the same goal as zooming out on many of them. The inside-of-a-polygon also gives you a geometic advantage by allowing more screens than a simple 2-D rectangular layout.
An interesting combination of fully 3D and the currently common 2D windowing system is the ZUI (Zoomable User Interface, as I'm sure many know).
Full 3D is disorientating since we don't have an extra dimension spare with which to observe the system. Viewing a 2D system in 3D space enables you to keep you bearings better, especially when your view is always fixed perpendicular to the viewable plane.
Many ZUIs also support the ability to stretch that 2D plane to make contextually relevent areas easier to access.
Apple amongst others have implemented a ZUI components (that dock thingy), but I haven't seen any full ZUI desktops yet. Speak up if you know of a decent one, you hosers.
When I first looked at this, I thought about Apple's expose. I think that Apple could implement this quite easily into their current implementation. I don't think I like the whole idea about having an entire sphere that you rotate through (though I think that could be made easy), but just have it appear like it is in a sphere in the screen with out being able to rotate around in it. I think its advantage over expose is its ability to overlap windows a little bit. When you get a lot of windows open on expose, it is a little bit cumbersome.
I think a better way to do have it be able to rotate through a sphere is to rotate the screen (when it is in expose mode) when the mouse goes to the edge of the screen. As an alternative, you could also use the keyboard arrow keys to navigate the sphere in larger increments. However, I think that the option to use a sphere should remain an option as it would probably be a distraction to ma and pop.
This would also be excellent with a five-button mouse with two buttons dedicated to expose (my current setup). You can just fly when things are set up this way.
I've been using the Sphere Xp for months now..
I think it's a great little program it's had it share of bugs but the developers have been very quick to fix these issues.
Thanks for making a decent product..
--don't make me eat my shorts.
EXECUTIVE
Oh, God, yes. We're talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.
MEYER
Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren't these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I'm accusing you of anything like that. I'm fired, aren't I?
--The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show script
...that what drives innovation is new input and output devices. There is a limited set of software that can be made to add or enhance functionality of the existing input and outbput devices on a computer. For example, a plain old QWERTY keyboard can only do so much regardless of whether it connects with an AT, PS/2 or USB interface. You might be able to write software that will use the scroll lock LED as a network link/traffic indicator, but that's about it. I've also heard that there were some projects that utilized the numeric section of the KB in a chording mode so you could ostensible type with one hand and possibly get a little faster at it. But as you can see, a keyboard is a keyboard is a keyboard. The same goes for a mouse. There is only so much you can do with a mouse before you hit limitations no matter how unique your GUI is (Mac, Windows, *nix, it doesn't matter).
:)
So the only answer to continue to drive innovation is new input and output devices. This is where Microsoft has got it right. They see the need for this and are constantly developing newer and more unique interfaces. They have their biometric login device that allows you to log in just by touching something. And now they have this new 3D sphere interface. What they need is a corresponding physical input device to take the most advantage of this new UI. Since they are so keen on the tactile approach, they should probably make an input device that is more convenient to what most of the users of their products are accustomed to interacting with.
I would suggest that they build a unit that can be placed on the lap for convenient reach. It should have a firm cylindrical projection that is easy to grab (probably about 6.5 inches in length and about 2 inches thick to fit the majority of the users hands) and two spheres placed on either side of the control rod. The placement of the two spheres on either side should accomodate left or right handed users who with to interact with the 3D Sphere UI. Just to make the make the spheres more tactile, they should use a surface that is somewhat riled. Possibly the entir e device could even be heated to approximately 98.6F so that touching it would be a little more intuitive.
Following up on their force feedback technology from the mid 90s, they could add the same kind of technology to this input device. A little jerking to and fro to represent more 3D features in this new UI might be helpful for most users. There could also be an automatic sensor in the control rod that can detect when a user's skin is getting a little dry and a plume of self contained moisturizing cream could be oozed out of the tip of the control rod and directed down the sides to the users hand(s) for instant skin relief.
Just a simple premise to prove that innovation in UIs is purely driven by the input and output hardware.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
This isn't news, but the next version of Windows will be vector based. I believe its interface is still currently being designed in 2D, but really, adding a 3rd dimension to something vector based will be trivial. The fact that the next Windows will require "above low-end" (by today's standards) video cards has been discussed here before.
But figuring out how to make it usable will be the real trick.
A lot of the complaints I've read are about the lack of interactiveness of the 3D-mode windows, and how that severely degrades it's usefulness. This is all very true, and a valid criticism, but I imagine that problem will likely evaporate once Longhorn hits machines, as it uses a true 3D interface (Direct3D) as it's core rendering layer instead of the current buggy, limited, anachronistic GDI used by Windows OS' since Win 3.1. Given that the windows become fully interactive, this may actually become a resonable interface system. Though windows become stretched and distorted as the 3D mapping warps them across the screen, the important part here is that they are navigable and visible. The area upon which the huuman fovia can actually focus is really a small percentage of our visual range, and this becomes even more useful as the size of monitors increases. What I'd really like to see, though, is sort of an inverted version of this -- a "pin-cushion" projection, where you parameterize the entire sphere (or hemisphere) so that it fits on your desktop. Imagine a system where whatever window(s) which is(are) active or pinned are at almost full screen in the center, while the inactive ones are squashed into the sides, corners, etc. Selecting one of those inactive windows is as wasy as just moving your mouse to the edge and clicking on it, which causes it to expand out of the boarder and squash the formerly foreground window back onto the other side of the screen. If this were implemented well it could really replace the entire "toolbar" paradigm currently in use.
I find it funny that this is being posted now.. I don't know about the rest of you, but I read about it months ago... if not a year.
I would love this built into OS X but it is just for Windows right now.
I can recall seeing some kind of 3D finder for OS X before, so I did a google and found it. It's called 3DOSX. However, I also found another one called 3D-Space VFS as well. They aren't the same thing as the UI the Slashdot post is talking about, but still are some kind of 3D interface.
You can always choose not to use the explorer shell... Most alternative shellls offer a vwm. I have only used litestep (and and am still using it), so I am not very sure about the other shells out there...
I do know that there are some vwms around that don't require you to switch shells. I wouldn't know where to look however...
After all, if monkeys will blow money to look at ass, a little bit of shock therapy can train a mouse.
This way, you can have both hands free. No more listening to the sound of 1 hand clapping...
And you know how you wiggle the mouse real quick to be able to find it on a cluttered screen? Won't have to do that any more - just show him a picture of a cat.
And when your mouse dies, feed him to the cat, then train the damn CAT to surf for you. Cats shouldn't have a hard time finding pussy.
And if PETA complains, sic your pit bull on them.
... we're still waiting for the sex suitThis looks awful.
http://www.robotii.co.uk/
this just show MS doesn't know what the fuck they're doing --; http://www.hammerrevolution.com/
so much for downloading it and trying it on my
demobox...
I'll try again in a week.
Wasn't this already done before?
Linux: When reboots are for upgrades.
Once again PARC led the pack.
I was at UIST '94 (ACM SIGCHI Conference on User I/F and Software Technology), and some guys from PARC presented a paper on what you call a ZUI.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I have tried most 3D desktops and one thing has been common amongst them. After the first week its not that useful anymore. Eycandy deluxe is nice for the newbie but often just slows the more experienced user down. I suspect that is why none of the ones done on linux has taken off, its just not useful.
HTTP/1.1 400
Since hamar.sk is getting slammed by slashdotters, I setup a quick download mirror of The Sphere XP on subterrain.net.
it's been done before, on a console even:
Katamari Damacy
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Great concept we need more development to end this Flat World "windows" interface. I wrote this a little while ago and wanted to share "Content is king and the lackadaisical development of a cohesive environment in the past has lead the 3D industry into a first person shooter rat maze mentality. DOOM was huge so lets flog this horse till it dies, well DOOM 3, Unreal, Halo and many others show that money is still in shoot-um up, yawn, video games. The industry is sooooooo sort sighted sometimes. The realities was in 1995 we were at the precipices of an unbelievable future where children would be taught in interactive 3D simulations. Imagine sitting in the boat as Washington crosses the Delaware, a lot more exciting than your history teacher reading from his text book supplement. In a future where augmented displays would feed us bus schedules and other mundane day to day information in an overlay of our vision. Living in a time where doctors would perform remote surgeries on patients in rural communities or half way across the world. A tomorrow that existed in interactive 3D shared space where our visual, auditory and even haptic senses would span the globe and move us beyond our physical locality. Many of these advancements are coming but the corporate CFO has no concept of what this truly means to his bottom line. He is still in gee whiz from his latest reporting tools with pie charts that update in real time. Wow can anyone say DATABASE. I truly believe that until they can get some sort of real true 3D experience beyond the video game corporate America will be more than happy to stick to 3D bar charts in Excel and Everquest as the extent of there 3D experiences. So to that end I say we strike at the only demographic that will guarantee to get them to open the pocket book, their children. Start with an educational environment or application. Make it interesting and fun while incorporating functionalities that utilize 3D, hell even 4D space. Lets bring these flat worlder's into true space (not to confused with Caligari) and make the realities of tomorrow not only virtual but visceral." Check out the http://www.digitaluniverse.net/ and a company called Many One.
John Anthony Hartman
I can see it now. Yes Grandma, enter sphere mode. Do you see the window that says Mozilla?
This piece of software was featured on The Screen Savers about 3-4 months ago. I've already downloaded the software and tried it.
To say the least, this software is... buggy. For some reason, you can "fixate" a window in a certain area of the sphere, but try to re-access it, and it's hard as all H*ll. The point-click interface has its ups and downs, and I definitely think the "traveling" interface should have been reworked... have the interface run like a 3d-shooter game, such as Quake. In that sense you'd have the mouse control most of the movement, just hold down the CTRL-ALT keys as you move... the wheel on the mouse would be the zoom. At least, taht would be an easier way to navigate it.
I also think the mouse click poller needs some more work, because its rate of polling really isn't up to par with the speed at which we navigate in our computers... especially for power users.
BUT... the idea IS good. Just needs more work, more...fluidity.
Sébastien Ferland couzin2000@gmail.com freedom | liberté | libertad | freiheit | libertà libertade |
I tried this out a couple of weeks ago. In short, it's utterly unusable and brings nothing of worth to the table. You basically map static images of your current windows onto a virtual "sphere." Manuvering around inside the sphere to find your windows is a pain. It's an ugly hack that I can't see ever being all that useful even if all the kinks get worked out.
OK, we've been here before on many previous other slashdot articles. 3D displays on regular flat screen do not work. They suck. They're slow, you loose windows, the text becomes distored and it's just overall harder to work with.
To be honest overlaping windows are even a problem.It's so easy to get lost in a mess of windows. Some people have suggested non-overlapping windows and there are even some window managers out there that offer this.
Now some people have experimented with using the alpha layer to make transparent windows. It makes it a little easier not to loose windows under the mess, but it's still querky.
I think the solution is a tiered approach. Remember those holographic 3d projections from old Sci-Fi films. Imagine having four layers, each projected an inch and a half away from each other. You can see through each layer. Press a button and flip the next layer up to the top and the top one to the bottom.
Yes, hardware, although it is avaiable, is damn expensive and it will take years before we'll have this unique type of 3D desktop, but what I'm trying to get at is that you can't force a 3D model onto the existing 2D framework. It's just a bad idea. However I'm not going to throw out the idea that 3D desktop enviroments will never work, but we really need the change to be at the hardware level, at the way images are displayed, rather than the software.
-Sumdog
Image how cool this could be on Mac OS X. Tweaking Expose to view all open windows at once, and then zooming in on the window you want instead of all of them falling behind eachother as it is. So if you hit the Expose trigger it zooms out to view all open windows, then zooms back in to the window you choose.
It could really be a cool addition, and it wouldnt be that much harder than the way Expose shows your windows now. As it stands Expose is cool anyway.
Thanks, I think I'll wait for Steve Jobs to demo it on a Mac, at which point it will have been done right -- built into the OS, graceful, beautiful, helpful, etc...
It is an interesting idea (as it was when this story was FIRST posted a year ago or more). It seems they have a new version since then but it's not a new slashdot story.
RP
This seems like it was created by someone who cared too much about creating an interface that Hollywood would love even if it has crappy usability. As long as monitors are flat, there is no point in trying to fit a 3d-ish UI onto the OS. You can do pseudo-3D where the 3D aspect is just eye candy like OSX's virtual desktop switcher or Longhorn's system to alt-tab through programs in 3d, but there is little point to adding 3d functionality...for now. Once we figure out how to get 3d glasses (or maybe just 2d HUD glasses) with enough resolution to act as a decent monitor, then it would be worthwhile to have an interface where your workspace was represented as the inside of a sphere with you in it. Each window would be flat (a plane tangent to the virtual sphere) but this would act as if you were surrounded by movable monitors. The entire system could react to head and eye movements to rotate the sphere. Now if technology could just catch up to my dreams.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
In fact video games rather prove the point.
The point of a video game is that you are playing through a virtual space, that you are slowly discovering this space as you would in real life. ELements are concealed from you until crucial moments. Do you turn on god/noclip mode when you first start a game?
But the goal of a desktop is exactly the opposite. Rather that concealing most of the world for later discovery, a desktop is meant to reveal as much as possible to you as quickly as possible. The design goals are utterly different, and not really compatible.
For concealing content in a compelling way it's hard to beat 3D. It lets you look around as you please and discover things in a natural manner. For showing you large amounts of data quickly you must move beyond the physical method of presentation to obtain the maximum degree of information density in a way very few real-world objects can quite match.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When I see a subject that says 3D Sphere Interface for XP, I'm thinking that there will be a bunch of windows that look like spheres. Now, the link definitely shows a bunch of 2D rectangles. So I guess that what I'm saying is that XP must truly be something if it can render 3D spheres as 2D rectangles that you can't use.
It has been a nervous year, with people beginning to feel like Christian Scientists with appendicitis.
In the southern hemisphere, the hourglass turns the other way.
Although I have my home computer set up for monitor spanning, I have to say that I don't use it most of the time as my monitor is too far to the side - to be really useful you have to have monitors side by side, making essentially one giant monitor.
I like your idea of an Expose like system where a current window is centered and all other windows sit around it in reduced size. It would be inetresting to play with something like that and see if it was practical to use with a lot of windows. I also don't know how good it would be when you have an ongoing task involving multiple windows... expose is pretty good at enhancing classic window managemnet as it is.
Your idea also sounds vaguley like an idea Edward Tufte hsa for how computer UI's should be, though I can't remember exact details.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think he should change it to view from the outside of a sphere, then market it to your local fortune-teller. A crystal ball interface for XP: there's no telling what it might predict!
~Ben
I've looked at this before and it is a clunky interface. Very difficult to use in practice. But kudos to the authors for trying.
When Longhorn arrives!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OS 8 and OS 9 are really really awful operating systems. They lock up for no reason. They can be screwed up by my kids loading some educational program.
In fact, Windows 95 is a more stable OS than those two abortions known as OS8 and OS9.
Thank god for OSX.
has ne1 tried 3ddesktop for linux? Kinda similar, lets u scorll through your workspaces in CD...rather sweet...hhaha desk3d.sourceforge.net/ check it out, its awsome
-EL
All of this is merely preparation for the grand vision I forsee someday: Remapping pixellated representations of two-dimensional elements onto arbitrary convex points and rotations of a hemi-spherical projection.
Man, Woman, Child: All are up against the wall of Science!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Similar things have been done for OSX before:
3D-OSX
It even got Slashdotted Before
Think 'afterstep in XP':
http://www.litestep.net/
Back when I ran windows (1999, maybe?), this worked reasonably well under Win 98. I haven't tried it since, but I saw something on Google that suggested that it works under XP...
Personally, I'm perfectly happy with gnome (or maybe evilwm) these days, but that's me.
Bah who wants or needs this when you have 3DNA which has been around for some time now http://www.3dna.net/
A masterpiece :)
I'm getting tired of trying to browse from work to sites referenced on Slashdot posts and all you guys have already Slashdotted it!!!! Get back to work so I can do some browsing!!!!
Use a spaceball!
The spaceball makes 3d viewpoint and object manipulation easy.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virt-dimension/
A great tool. I've been using it for quite a while on Windows 2000 and the only quirk is after setting up how you want it to behave having to shut it down once to store its settings in the registry. I also keep a backup of the registry key for that. Other than that it works great for me, and I'm used to KDE.
home
I don't think it's already been mentionned here so I suggest non-windows users interested in this kind of stuff to take a look at metisse:n dex.html
/ screenshots/
http://insitu.lri.fr/~chapuis/metisse/i
some screenies:
http://insitu.lri.fr/~chapuis/metisse
-- We are Microsoft. Linux is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare to be assimilated. --
Expose', built into OS X, has similar functionality in terms of viewing all your windows at once. There's also a utility called Desktop Manager that will give you multiple desktops on OS X, with very spiffy transitions to boot: http://the.taoofmac.com/space/Desktop%20Manager
I'm skeptical that it wouldn't be very practical
So, in other words, you're not certain that you would not find it not practical?
Score: i, Imaginary
Looks like Sun's Project Looking Glass and what the next Windows will do doesn't it?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/14/214020 3&tid=189&tid=190/
mod this one up - funny w/ cats 'n' coffee warning ... I damn near spat coffee on my screen
try 3ddesktop, which is a desktop switcher which runs on opengl. (at first i thought it was a desktop environment, which is obviously isnt - it's a desktop switcher) works on fluxbox, xfce4, kde, gnome... pretty much anything on linux. runs really fast. animation speed and view mode types can be customized quite well.
my blog
This was on TechTV.. not G4TechTv. It was on air BEFORE they merged. It's _that_ old.
:D
Sadly enough, it makes me dizzy. I might have to cut back on the caffine for a while... or increse the dosage
This is apparently not the way to handle multiple monitors... As when I drag a window from one monitor to another with this 3D desktop, it disappears. Oops. That is no fun. So much for demo it it with my nifto cool flat panel display.
Well, I suppose it is a work in progress. Where is the source code?
Randy.Flood@RHCE2B.COM
"...coolest way to handle multiple screens...."
You betcha... Especially when you have 20 buttons in the taskbar. Won't that be cool?
mod the parent up
Wow, that was modded unexpectedly harshly.
Doesnt work on 64bit Windows.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
and yes, Apple does some things..just to prove their impracticality...
I used the Litestep implementation of a virtual desktop manager where you could just pickup a window and drag it to another virtual desktop (it jumped from one to the other when the mouse hit the edge of the screen). I'm yet to see anything but extra physical screens beat that.
If you could view the 3d interface on one monitor and use the foreground app in the second monitor it would be more useful. You need a game machine to run it but it looks like a step in the right direction. It reminds me of the croquet interface.
Acrylic Bubble Panels www.beyond7.com
Apparently, gunning down PID#1 is not recommended, can't think why. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Replace the mousewheel with a small trackball. This then would provide universal scrolling along 2 axes. You could use this for all kinds of gaming stuff also, and it would be great for something like this 3D environment. And best of all, backwards compatible with wheel mice.
Clickety Click
Why does one of the windows on the screenshot you provided say linux?
this could become a good tool for people who do major multitasking (i would perfer a cube) but this is the kind of thing that could potentially scare the life out of a pc n00b...
Get your torrents...
Does anyone know about a good scrollable virtual desktop for Windoze? I used to enjoy the virtual desktop provided by ATi drivers back on my P200 with Ati Rage 3D. I tried using SDesk, but it has performance issue (redrawing) and was not updated since 2003.
Does anyone know about a decent scrollable virtual desktop that I just failed to notice?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
You can set them to refresh. You have to do it by a window-by-window basis though. (Refresh rate is custom too, default is 20 sec.)
Slash should have a built-in link checker that checks any links in a post against previous stories, then lists any stories that have dupes - obviously you'd need a way to store links as "common" for when you link to base sites, but it would still stop this happening.