From: Anthony STEED <A.Steed@cs.ucl.ac.uk>
 Date:
December 1, 2003 3:28:35 PM EST
 To: Doug Bowman <bowman@vt.edu>, Pedro Teixeira
 <pedr0_teixeira@ig.com.br>
 Cc: 3dui@hitl.washington.edu
 Subject: Re: On guidelines
>
>
>
> Pedro,
>>
> There are some guidelines that have been put forward, e.g.
>>
> Gabbard, J. (1997). Taxonomy of Usability Characteristics in Virtual
> Environments.
Unpublished Masters Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic
> Institute and
State University.
>>
> Kaur, K. (1999).
Designing Virtual Environments for Usability.
> Doctoral
> thesis,
University College, London.
>
 We (UCL) can't claim Kulwinder's work. She was at
City University,
 
London and worked with Alastair Sutcliffe there.
>
 If you are looking broader that just the widgets, I would add Jolanda
 Tromp's thesis to the list to read for general usability issues in VEs
 including some non-obvious issues that arise with CVEs and interfaces
 that mix 2D&3D:
>
 Tromp, J.G. (2001). Systematic Usability Design and Evaluation for
 Collaborative Virtual Environments, PhD Thesis,
University of
 Nottingham
, UK
.
>
> Bowman, D. (2002).
Principles for the Design of Performance-Oriented
> Interaction Techniques.
In K. Stanney (Ed.), Handbook of Virtual
> Environments (pp. 277-300):
Lawrence Erlbaum.
>
 Going slightly off original topic here, but never mind ... I enjoyed
 reading Doug's chapter, but I must admit to having some mild
 disagreements and queries about Doug's suggestions, and an ambition to
 add some more. Perhaps it interesting to debate the suggestions on
 this list (after all this list is acknowledged in the chapter as a
 source).
>
> ...but I think the general statement is still true - there is no
> standardized set of guidelines. The situation with software tools is
> also still bad - there are few software packages, if any, that help
> programmers easily implement 3D UIs.
>
 Agreed that there are no broadly useful 3D UI toolkits.
>
 The original poster might look at the dVISE/DIVISION software for an
 example of a reasonably usable immersive 3D menu system. I have a long
 video tape demonstrating this in operation. The tape is on the pile of
 tapes to digitise, I can put it on top of the pile if there is
 interest.
>
 You can still download the Brown 3D widget library, though I haven't
 tested it recently
 http://www.cs.brown.edu/research/graphics/research/widgetlib/
 I think widgetlib was X11 only (mmmm, new 4th year undergrad project
 added to the list).
>
> --Doug
>
 Anthony
>
 -----------------------------------------------------------
 Dr Anthony Steed A.Steed@cs.ucl.ac.uk
>
>
> On Dec 1, 2003, at 12:23 PM, Pedro Teixeira wrote:
>>
>>>
>> Hi all,
>>>
>> As part of an academic project, I'm currently writing a 3Dui for the
>> creation of scenes that can, hopefully, be saved using the x3d format
>> (in Java that is, using the Xith3D for the curious (www.xith.org) --
>> since Java3D seems dead).
>>>
>> While reading the 3D literature out there, I always find comments
>> that
>> one of the main drawbacks of implementing a 3Dui is that there is no
>> standard guideline, or set of widgets, etc.. that are available for
>> the programmer. But some of the papers I read are at least 10 years
>> old, so I wonder about the current state of designing a 3Dui, are
>> there specific guidelines? If so, can some one point me to book or a
>> link?

>>>
>>>
>> best regards,
>>>
>> Pedro Teixeira
>>
Warwick University, UK
>>>
>>>
>> ps: how are excited are people about the new Sharp 3-D Debuts display
>> laptop? haven't had the chance to see it yet, does it provide a
>> legitimate 3d interaction? which 3d input devices will be used with
>> it?
>>>
>>>
> --
> Doug Bowman (540) 231-2058 (voice)
> Assistant Professor (540) 231-6075 (fax)
> Computer Science bowman@vt.edu (email)
>
Virginia Tech http://people.cs.vt.edu/~bowman/
>>
>