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Three 3D Web Browsers Reviewed
mikemuch writes "Use that graphics card for something besides games. ExtremeTech has a group review of three browsers that use some aspect of 3D to display the Web. While none of them are going to put Firefox or IE out of business any time soon, they're fun to play with and give a new slant to the Web." From the article: "Whatever happened to the virtual reality, 3D world of the Web? Back in the late '90s, all the hype was about VRML -- Virtual Reality Markup Language -- which would turn the web into an immersive environment that you'd maneuver around to get to the information you wanted. We're here to tell you that the reports of the 3D Web's death are greatly exaggerated."
Agreed. The ones that angle, shrink, or otherwise distort the windows are the worst. What does it mean that a window is at an angle? Does that somehow help me? How is it more useful than a window being "behind" another window or "minimized"?
About the only use I can see is for maps. So, for instance, you have a handheld device that could sense your position, and draw you an arrow in a 3D environment that looks identical to your physical environment, this would make map reading extremely easy. This would be especially use full (far in the future) when we're wearing glasses or contacts with augmented reality, and the arrows can simply be drawn over the existing physical location.
I could see other uses given new interfaces, but a keyboard and mouse don't seem to be useful for 3D window management. If you could take your hands (somehow) and grab onto these windows like you would a piece of paper, then I could see it being useful. That's quite a ways off, though.
It was painfully slow; a real gimmick. I can't see any benefit beyond the gimmick for then, and now.
These are probably, like many sites these days, counting on you having DSL, because any thing less to access these sites is going to crawl. One reason I despise Flash splash-pages is my dial-up access. It's so enjoyable twiddling your thumbs or playing a quick game of Minesweeper while waiting for crap to download which doesn't tell you anything Text couldn't.
Then like now, the difference between gimmick and junk is how you use it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We need a decent ubiquitous 3D plugin for things like showing off stuff you can buy in 3D.
We don't need a browser to show us a 3D representation of the web, because that is too much information. Hyperbolic mappings are not somehow more intuitive than simple lists. In fact, they are less so.
When we get common 3D displays and controllers, then my position will change.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
I can see the need for "visualisation". See, the step from command line to graphical interface surely did some good for people who can't be bothered to learn the commands. While this caused the influx of dimwits to the web, it certainly was something that faciliated the approach by heaps. The information can be presented in a way that is easier to understand.
Now, 3D graphics on a 2D display is the opposite. Instead of presenting information in an easier understandable way, it obscures it. Basically, what we lack now is suitable interfaces. Input as well as output. The mouse is not the best way to navigate in a three dimensional world, neither is a non-stereo view the best display for it.
My guess would be the new interface for Vista will face a similar fate.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It is understandable that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem will look like a nail. However, when every problem is a nail, why the hell would you look for a screwdriver?
Microsoft already tried placing small items/thumbnails in a "3D" environment. It was called Microsoft Bob and it failed completely.
"Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a fully 3D web, but I'm not willing to sacrifice functionality to get it."
And yet people interact with full functionality every time they play a multiplayer (FPS,RTS,etc) game. The main difference between the web and games is the size of the world.
It may be useless in its current incarnation, but that doesn't mean someone won't come up with a good way to use it as the technology matures.
The main problem is that people have this nifty tool, but they keep applying it to bolt it onto an existing interface instead of really trying to create a new one. (And when they do try to create a new one, the drawbacks outweigh the advantages. I swear, these "airport/city" metaphors and the like remind me of nothing so much as Microsoft Bob.) It's like using advanced 3D graphics to render a console app -- in a hard-to-read font.
Someone needs to figure out what a 3D display brings to the table, and build on that. Texture-mapping the 2D web onto the walls doesn't accomplish much.
So rather than making something more fuctional or doing something in a new, better way, you would instead just make things look like they are being done in a better way.
Adding a dimension to an task on a computer does nothing but slow it down in most cases. Yes, it make lower the learning curve, or be more prettyful, but slow it down it does.
.mp3 files and changing them to .ogg files.
Lets take for example the task of taking all
In one dimension (command line), we have a simple python script:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
list = os.listdir('.')
for item in list:
os.system('mp32ogg "' + item)
Nice and easy, and scales linearly with x number of file.
Now lets add another dimension: a GUI.
Now we go into our graphical program to convert it, and open a file manager, and select something, and then encode it. Now it is easily 2x time.
Now lets add a third dimension: We open a program to do it, open a file manager, and then walk around and chase the buggers down.
5x time at least.
And we got the ooh factor, but only at the cost of 5 times the time (and it is interactive time too!) Psh, I'll stick with my CLI.
DYWYPI?
...and yet people still buy paitings.
Boobs've gotta be WAY better in 3D.
Throw in Feel-A-Round and I think you've got a killer ap.
KFG
Texture-mapping the 2D web onto the walls doesn't accomplish much.
That's the problem with ALL of the 3D web-browsing/user-interface implementations right now. You use markup and controls that are designed to render onto a flat 2D raster surface. It seems logical to bundle an existing renderer (an IE/gecko control, or a UI toolkit window rendering) and point it at a texture, and then schlep that into a 3D framework... but that's just so completely wrong.
At least for web browsing... if you want to make it 3D then you first need to WRITE a 3d renderer for XHTML. You need to figure out some way of interpreting the tags and markup and using 3d (or 3d accelerated algorithms) to do something intelligent with all that CSS and hints.
You are going to need to at least have an antialiased glyph renderer for text. Either using real polygons or dynamically created texture maps (maybe a single mip-mapped texture for each character).
Because on the web the most important thing to be able to have is LEGIBLY RENDERED TEXT.
Maybe for the sake of keeping polycounts low you reserve the shape-defined text for h1/h2 tags and render the rest as rasters. But do something useful with them.
Don't start putting textures containing text at oblique angles unless you've got it at least 2x oversampled. Instead, render it to a surface in a bounding box and "float" it where you want but keep it's normal pointed straight at the view frustrum. Or use a particle or sprite primitive.
Come on people!
Have a look at some demoscene demostrations and how they integrate text and 3d. I guarantee you can always read the text clearly (as it is often used to convey jokes or greetz). And that stuff is just for fun.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
No way, dude. Talking about 3D, real boobs are WAY better than virtual boobs.
I was going to dismiss Apple's use of 3D for Dashboard, since it's just a visual effect rather than an extra dimension, but realized a key aspect of it (I don't have the latest version of OS X so I've never seen it). A seeming equivalent would be to have the widget's window content replaced with the preferences UI elements when you clicked some button, without any 3D effect. But this wouldn't have real-world equivalent for the user to intuitively grasp, so it wouldn't be as natural to think about. By having it flip over, it ties into our natural understanding of semi-flat gadgets having two sides.
Of course every user-interface that allows overlapping windows is 3D, and benefits from the natural ability of the user to grasp this.