Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 09:12:24 -0500 From: "Wolfgang Stuerzlinger" Subject: Re: 2D interfaces in a 3D environment Sender: To: "Kevin M Curry" Cc: "3D UI list" <3d-ui@hitl.washington.edu> Message-id: <3BFBB648.A20CEB59@cs.yorku.ca> Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, York University MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; U) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Importance: Normal X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Accept-Language: en X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 References: <3BF9D3A2.5E8EA9C@home.com> X-Authentication-warning: torch.hitl.washington.edu: majordom set sender toowner-3dui@hitl.washington.edu using -f X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Kevin M Curry wrote: > One claim I stand by firmly: > > There is no need to make something 3D just because you can. > > Has anyone seen Win3D from Clockwise? They turn your desktop into a virtual > world. I hate it. (I'm sorry, but I really don't like it.) I can find no > good reason why my desktop should be laid out like a virtual office, where I > have to walk around the hallways and visit thematic rooms labeled "Games," > or "Internet." What is gained by having me "walk" over to a 3D model of a > filing cabinet and open a drawer just to access the file system? I'd even > have to guess that if one measured the tasks they'd be found to take > longer. Yet, browsing the file system is something that I can and want to > as quickly and painlessly as possible. Browsing a virtual world is an > interesting concept when it's truly meant to be part of the experience. But > when it come to file access, I care nothing about the journey. I only care > about getting to the thing I'm after. Creating a neat virtual world to > represent my computer's file system does nothing for me. > > Don't get me wrong, though. I'm rather open to the possibility that I've > been brainwashed by the "Windows paradigm" and that there could be > completely new and different metaphors for interaction besides the > traditional virtual desktop. But people have immediate needs to get at > their data and play with it NOW. They can't wait for what may be a more > natural and intuitive way to do the I/O. We have to be careful not to spend > so much time trying to look for the right 3d metaphor that we miss the > point. 3D has been slow to gain legitimacy as a solution because we haven't > been able to do much with it besides look at the output of complex computer > algorithms. > > Of course, I could read that paper and find myself totally invalidated - I > don't even know if it agrees with what I'm asserting here. But I think > there's something to be said for limiting some interaction in 3D > environments to 2D manipulation. Note that I said "manipulation." I'm not > saying buttons, and menus, and combo boxes can't look 3D. As long as I am > building buttons, menus and combo boxes, I should never have to reach for a > control. I should only have to reach when it conveys meaning in the VE. > The location of a light switch on a wall for an architectural walk through > has meaning for the designer. There are also virtual models of certain real > world controls that require 6 DOF. But a control panel of buttons and combo > boxes is just an easy and recognizable way to manipulate data. Give me a > HUD that can be navigated with an X & Y device - fill it with sliders and > dials and buttons. You can keep Z for the tasks that are truly three > dimensional. > > I cannot tell you how many times I've seen scientists trying to use tool > panels that they can't reach with the virtual tip of their wand. It's > almost sad watching them rearrange the objects in the environment so they > can find their toolbars. If I'm inspecting a model of a rocket engine, then > I need 3D interaction and preferably 6 DOF. If I have to open up a dialog > to load a new model then is there anything wrong with a 2D control? > > One final thought. It's just as important for me to bring 3D to the user as > it is to bring the user to my 3D. > > KMC There is indeed at least partial evidence that 3D manipulation in a 3D VR environment may not always be necessary and sometimes indeed be "harmful". As most people are not comfortable with the notion of manipulating invisible objects, one observation is to reduce e.g. 3D translation to the visible image of the scene (which is 2D). All low-level techniques based on ray-casting, etc. exploit this principle. Taking this argument one step further one can use what most people percieve as normal or "common sense" (e.g. that gravity exists :-) and use this to simplify interactions even further. This improves interaction speed by a factor of approximately 2.5. See the papers on the MIVE system on my WWW page. Wolfgang Stuerzlinger -- Wolfgang Stuerzlinger Dept. of Computer Science; Yor