Commercial 3D UI and for Linux

Lord Carmack wrote in to point us to Objective Reality's homepage which claims that it will be releasing an OpenGL based 3D interface for linux. There isn't much there, but it at least looks interesting- although it also looks commercial so I'm skeptical about how much acceptance it will see.

Comments

3D UIs:

[Ian Bicking]

Honestly, I think 3D UIs are mostly for looks, not for real use. IMHO they don't have the potential to significantly increase the efficiency of people's interaction with the computer.

I responded to someone wanting to add 3D to Gnome a while back. They felt you could express more information with a third dimension, but they overlooked the fact that human vision is inherently 2D.

In an already 3-dimensional context, it would be helpful to have a 3D extrapolation of the interface -- something that the aforementioned 3dwm seems to be trying to do. But to put a 3D interface onto a 2D display is just glitz.

The human mind does have a proficiency at creating an internal model of a 3D situation, even though it is only perceived with two dimensions. However, while this is useful for understanding inherently three-dimensional situations (as in CAD, for instance) it is not a good way at dealing with other information.

People naturally organize things in a two-dimensional fashion when given the choice. Be it shelves, stacks of papers, tabular information, etc. It is easier and more accessable.

While there are certainly more innovations left to be made in interface, the new directions are much more subtle than 3D.

IBM's research into 3d environments.

[Grenamier]

Take a look through this: RealPlaces.

It's very interesting.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

[asb]

What does 2D GUI components mapped into 3D space provide, other than the backside of a window, that cannot be done in ordinary 2D environment? This whole concept sounds like a slashdot kiddie-bait.

How about a 3D window manager?

[NickElm]

Check out the 3Dwm website for something quite similar... This is a three-dimensional window manager for X with OpenGL support. It's still in early development, though. Another cool app is GLACE, which supports running X applications on 3D surfaces.

Berlin Consortium

[V.]

I'm sure that a lot of people already know this, but for those who don't....

http://www.berlin-consortium.org

The Berlin Consortium appears to have similar
goals( altho it's a little hard to tell from the
somewhat vague PR by Objective Reality ) w/ the
advantage of being GPLed. Berlin has the
disadvantage of being rather in young in
devel. terms tho.

Re:need to be compatible w/ X

[scrytch]

> who wants to pay $100 for a GUI that isn't compatible w/ X.

Every windows and mac user.