Apple's 3D Desktop Patent Filing Examined

phantomfive writes "The patent office has released some patent filings by Apple which indicate that the company is working on a 3D desktop of some sort. They call it a multi-dimensional desktop, according to the patent filing." There's also some commentary at ZDNet; both stories link to a detailed run-down at AppleInsider.

Comments

I love 3D

[alain94040]

Not surprising if you look at the 3D effects that Apple put into Time Machine and the document stack. I love these.

What will make this really interesting is the navigation itself: since Apple is about to get rid of all buttons on the trackpad (and mouse?), I'm wondering if they have thought of some fancy 3 or 4-finger gestures to move around in 3D. I can think of some games that could use that.

The first time I saw the idea of 3D navigation for the desktop was when Hypercard came out (was that 10, 15 years ago?). Someone came up with this concept of a house where you'd store various things. In the basement would be the backups. On the desk in the office would be the open documents, etc. You'd just walk around your house in what (at the time) felt like 3D.

--
http://fairsoftware.net/ -- where software developers share revenue from the apps they create

Re:I love 3D

[avandesande]

The problem is that your monitor is still in two dimensions- so what benefit do you get with a 3d interface that you constantly need to translate back in to 2 dimensions?

Re:I love 3D

[Tubal-Cain]

It doesn't need to be a giant cube or sphere. All we need to do is harness the power of the Reality Distortion Field to travel to the Star Trek universe and bring back some holoemitters.

Re:I love 3D

[fprintf]

They'll need to solve the motion sickness problem for some people first. I got quite sick at a 3D IMAX production, I think called "Deep Sea" a number of years ago. They had these big polarized goggles that would sit on your head and you would get a 3D effect from looking around. The problem was, as far as I could tell, was that any movement in 3 dimensional space was not accompanies by movement of the inner ear. So my eyes were thinking I was moving along the sea floor, but ears said "no way". I ended up taking them off and watching the movie in 3D. I was OK by the end of the movie.

Second experience was riding on the Aladdin carpet ride at Disney World/EPCOT in Florida. I believe this is the virtual ride developed by Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon, the guy that gave that great speech when he got cancer. I got really sick on this one, in fact ended up puking after the ride. It was similar, one part of my brain said that I was moving in space but other parts said "no way". I am a sailor and was training to be a pilot, and hadn't been seasick in years... but this ride made me hot, sweaty and eventually pukey. Nastiest experience I have had in years.

I am assuming that the display, if just used for navigation, won't have a lot of movement that might induce motion sickness. After all, I can look around in space now without a problem, changing focus on things near and far, looking from right to left etc. So maybe it won't be any kind of problem. I can tell you I won't be a first adopter though! Blech!

Re:I love 3D

[diegocgteleline.es]

The same benefit you get from running a 3D game instead of a 2D one.

The fact is, desktop has never been 2D. It has always been 3D. The shadows under a button that make it look pushed or not are a 3d effect, even if it's implemented as a black shadow in a bitmap.

You can have top or botton windows. That's 3D aswell.

3D desktops will not be about having a "3D room" in your desktop. They will be normal desktops just like they're today. The difference will be that instead of drawing a bitmap with a black line to make a button look like it's pressed, you'll have a 3D engine and the toolkit will tell the 3D engine: "move the button x pixel in depth" - and the engine will move the button and will draw the shadows according to the surrounding objects.

IOW, you'll have a 3d engine powering your desktop, managing not just your windows (beryl can do that today), but also your widgets. Or icons. Icons won't be just a 2d bitmap/vector image, they will be a 3d object that will react to events with all kind of 3D effects - rotation, lighting, jumping, smoke...whatever

As expected, it seems that Apple has the lead. It's a shame that nobody in Linux is doing something similar. It's an oportunity to take lead in the desktop.

Re:I love 3D

[initialE]

But the directions clearly said not to taunt super fun ball.

Guess they haven't heard of...

[jvd]

This clearly shows that the patent system is broken. Sun have been working on a 3D Desktop since the early 2000s.

More info: http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/

Re:Guess they haven't heard of...

[CajunArson]

That's like saying that since cars have existed for over 100 years it is impossible to get a patent on a new development for a car.
Looking at the claims, this patent is (unsurprisingly) not trying to claim the use of 3-D technology in a computer GUI. Instead, look at independent claim 1:

1. A graphical user interface, comprising:a viewing surface;a back surface axially disposed from the viewing surface to define a depth;one or more side surfaces extending from the back surface to the viewing surface;a visualization object receptacle disposed on one or more of the side surfaces; and one or more visualization objects disposed within the visualization object receptacle, the one or more visualization objects corresponding to one or more system objects.

      The Apple application is for the use of a room-like setting where there is organization of visual elements along the "floor", "walls", and "ceiling" of the room. This is definitely different than looking glass, about the closest thing I've seen would be a demo from Qt on a Wolfenstein + desktop elements interface: see video here. However, it is unclear if the Wolfenstein demo actually anticipates the claims of this patent on two grounds: 1. the use of a static room could be different enough from the use of a maze, and the Wolfenstein demo does not stack & arrange elements like Apple is claiming) and 2. The Apple invention likely predates the WolfQt code.
    Additionally, as is often the case with Slashdot, the readers do not understand the difference between a granted patent and a patent application. This is ONLY an application, and as any patent practitioner knows, what you originally apply for is often much different than what you eventually get granted as a patent.

      Finally, before everyone in here panics that Linux will be illegal in 2 weeks or some other nonsense, just look at the subject matter that Apple is patenting: It's a stupid room with windows pasted on the wall! Who cares!! Even if Apple gets the patent, just don't go out and copy them and you'll be fine. The attitude of panic on here is actually indicative of a deeper fear. It's not that patents "stifle innovation", but instead that patents mean you can't just make a direct knock-off of some other UI which is what really freaks some people out.

Re:Guess they haven't heard of...

[sammyF70]

Why do people always concentrate on the compiz cube?

Along with the windows opening/closing animations and the wobbly effect, the cube ranks among the most useless effects in Compiz (though I must admit I like the windows effects a lot somehow)

Expo, fading, windows preview, all the magnifier and zoom functions, the shift switcher, along with the shelf functions are actually very useful (and productivity enhancing, once you get past the WOW effect), but somehow nobody ever talks about them. Hell ... even the water function is useful, as it can be used as a silent (and cool looking) system beep.

Yes, they are also very pretty and geeky, but so what? just because something does look cool doesn't mean it's useless

Re:It's a unix system! I know this.

[mrdoogee]

Aww fond memories there. I remember back in 93 watching that movie with a few friends in a crowded theater and I believe it went down like this:
Lex:It's a UNIX system! I know this!
Me: NO ITS NOT!
Usher: Please leave.

Re:It's a unix system! I know this.

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

It was, actually. It was fsn running on Irix (one of the few times something computery wasn't mocked up).

Jobs is not an inventor

[hellfire]

Jobs is a marketer. What happens is a programmer gets a cool idea, writes a prototype, and sends it up to the execs for review along with a dozen other ideas. Then jobs gets baked, reads through proposals, sees the cool one and goes "OMG I can so sell that to millions of n00bs! A brilliant marketing plan for this just popped into my head! I will 0wnz j00r w0rldz with my reality distortion field muahahahahahahaha!!" Developers get paid, Jobs is triumphant, and the result is not perfect but pretty good, incredibly stylish, and everyone except the most die hard slashdotters and luddites will want one.

N-dimensions -1

[StikyPad]

Setting aside for a minute the fact that data storage is already a multidimensional representation on any modern computer..

The most efficient way to manipulate that data is in a 2D matrix. That's because we can see all of it at once -- at least, as much as can fit on the display and/or our arc of vision. If we lived in 4 spatial dimensions, it would make sense to represent data in 3 dimensions, because we could see all 3 of them at once (assuming we had 4D sensory input.. whatever that might be). Creating a 3D representation of data might look cool, but it's just not efficient to work with for any amount of data beyond 2-3 items. See: Win-Tab in Vista, Stacks in OSX. It's not that we need better ideas for how to represent data in 3D, rather it's a physical limit that we need to accept and stop trying to do it "because we can."

If you still don't buy that, imagine living in 2 dimensions (which is probably easier than imagining 4). We exist only on a plane, and objects can be represented only on the axises around us; nothing above or below, and we could only see the 180 degree arc from left to right. It would make no sense to represent data as more than a 1D line. Sure, we could send a line to the front or back, but working with a set of data would be most efficiently accomplished along that line.

It's always more efficient to work with a set of data in 1 less dimension than you exist in. (Unless you live in 1D.. then I guess you're screwed.) There's a reason we don't use a 3D writing system. There's a reason we don't stack monitors one behind the next. Store it in 3 dimensions, fine, as a book, or as a stack of 2D windows, but use it in 2 dimensions. A 3D desktop is form over function in the worst sense.

welcome to 1999

[logicassasin]

Back around 99, I remember installing a little OpenGL accellerated 3D desktop for Win98. At the time, I had an STB Permedia2 based card (full OpenGL ICD) and it was one of the very few cards that could run this "desktop" of sorts. Icons could be placed ANYWHERE in a 3D field and I could navigate 3D space around them. I could move through all three axis, rotate, do all kinds of things, even lose icons if I placed them in an area of 3D space too far away from the rest of the desktop stuff. It was neat for about 6 days, then I stopped using it.

I'm sure I still have a copy of this in my CD graveyard. I'll look for it later and post up something when/if I find it.

Re:Settle Down

[DittoBox]

I think more realism in metaphor implementation would definitely help people crossover to computers easier. File organization, menus and multiple windows are a tough one for most folks. Being able to understand how three dimensional physics affects pieces of paper (documents), photographs, application windows (needs a good metaphor that doesn't conflict with paper documents) and folders for keeping it all in will help a lot of people who can't grok it as is.

A lot of people bitch and moan about "terrible eye-candy". It might slow you down some, but for a lot of people visual hints and metaphors are the only way to understand this stuff.

Work in any kind of design field for a while and you start to appreciate how simple visual hints help or hinder people. Being able to intuitively grok the way anything from a toaster to a can opener to an operating system works without having to really think about it is a Good Thing.

I agree though, you shouldn't be able to patent a metaphor, an algorithm or an analogy. It's just dumb.

Please, STFU if you have nothing useful to say

[crmarvin42]

It is apparent that you have never actually bothered to use one of the touchpad's in question. The whole pad is one physical button. It can be configured to act as a single button like the one present on all Mac portables, or to behave like the mighty mouse where the Left and Right sides are treated like separate buttons.

It's also obvious that if you've ever used an apple portable, you've never bothered to look at the preference pane for configuring the pointer (trackpad or mouse). Their is a checkbox present that says "Ignore accidental trackpad input" that works flawlessly. There is also a checkbox that says "Ignore trackpad when mouse is present"

Please, if you've never actually used a piece of equipment, don't give your ignorant opinion on it. It'd be like me giving you my opinion of Halo 3. Never played the game so have no worth while input on the topic.