From: Niklas Elmqvist [d97elm@dtek.chalmers.se]
Sent: Monday, October 04, 1999 6:25 PM
To: '3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu'
Subject: RE: 3D window management


On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Maarten van Dantzich wrote:

> > Well, it is true that many of the standard productivity applications 
> > may not be suited for immersive 3D environments. 
> 
> It's not clear to me that 2D apps are necessarily harder to use inside a 3D
> environment. If it's easy to align your view with the normal of the window
> so you get the usual canonical view, and if the visual quality isn't
> degraded too much, there aren't necessarily any big hurdles.

I agree. I stated my opinion a little unclearly there. I'm saying that
some applications do not scale intuitively to 3D -- they are inherently 2D
in nature, but might still be used in a 3D environment.

Of course, there might be other complications with using different classes
of applications in an immersive environment, and most of them have been
recognized and touched on this list before; how do you use keyboards in
together with a HMD or in a CAVE where you are (usually) standing? Like I
said, this has been discussed before, so I won't go into that (I'm hardly
an expert when it comes to input devices and techniques). 

[snip]

> > Of course, let's not forget that many "normal" 2D programs may be 
> > extended to three dimensions to great effect. Remember fsn, the 
> > three-dimensional file manager which was showed off in Jurassic Park? 
> 
> To WHAT great effect? I've known enough people who owned SGIs and used them
> full-time, but none of them used fsn for real tasks. It's flashy, but not
> that useful. 

Heh, touchè! Well, it *is* an example taken off the top of my head.

> I'd point to the Treemap solution out of U/Maryland as a better
> file system visualization.

Right. I'm not familiar with that system; all I am saying (and this might
be obvious, but I got the impression that the original poster did not
think so) is that many "standard" applications might benefit from being
represented in 3D.

> > How about a 3D-debugger which gives useful information on the spatial 
> > relationships of program components? 
> 
> What spatial relationships of program components?  Mine seem to be pretty
> linear. <grin> Do you have some programming lanuague I don't know about?
> ;-) ;-)

Yes, I do (aw, you might have heard of it, of course). :) Functional
languages. Granted, a bit academic in nature, but the people at the CS
department here at Chalmers are currently researching debuggers for
Haskell, a pure and strict functional programming language with lazy
evaluation. I'm no expert at all (I've only toyed with it enough to know
its general strengths and weaknesses), but this not a straightforward task
and some people claim that a graphical representation of the program
execution could be used, indeed, to GREAT effect.

And yes, for the record, my programs are pretty linear too... :)

> Seriously, though--I'd be very interested in seeing code evolution over
> time. And showing program performance traces over time. Some of this is
> going on, e.g. Steve Reiss' work at Brown University is interesting.  [I
> don't see any papers on his webpage offhand. I do believe he published
> something. http://www.cs.brown.edu/~spr ]
> 
> Something that's deeply worrisome about 3D UI is that even the researchers
> who are publishing in this area don't seem to use any 3D-UI-based tools on a
> day-to-day basis for tasks other than the research itself. Do you put on a
> headmount to read your email?  :)

Umm... Actually, no. Good point. Our mission is clearly to introduce
enough advantages in the new 3D environment that users (including us) are
compelled to use it in favor of the conventional 2D systems.

> The above is meant as a devil's advocate argument to provoke discussion, and
> admittedly biased against head-mounted 3D. But obviously since I work in
> this area (3D UI) I do have hope!

As do I. This is a very interesting field to be working in. 

/Nick

-- Niklas Elmqvist (d97elm@dtek.chalmers.se) ----------------------
  "One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any
   helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual."
           -- Terry Pratchett, Jingo