Submitted by For years computer interfaces have been held back by two dimensions. The power and flexibility of three dimensional interfaces have remained the stuff of science fiction movies, video games and very custom high-end applications. Aoren Software now brings that power to everyday applications and operating systems through a window server and framework technology called Vision. Vision was designed from the ground up to break away from old paradigms and provide the interface needs of the next generation. Application developers can get their hands on the technology with the developer preview release and start creating programs that have previously resided only in the imagination.
“held back by two dimensions” Hardly. I can type something into Spotlight and get a result insantly. Am I held back because it’s 2D?
This is finding a solution for a problem that doesn’t yet exist.
There is a reson this idea has been played around with so much lately but never caught on (no, not government conspiracy). Our screens are 2D surfaces and any other apparent window orientation than flat (the way they are nowdays) causes loss of apparent area and unnatural, inhomogeneous scaling. Also, people have never been known to read books at an angle.
Streoscopic displays should have an impact on this issue, though they aren’t currently common.
On the onther hand, using 3D hardware/API/operations to manipulate desktop items is only common sense. This particular project doesn’t seem to succed at that either, since their anti-aliasing sucks.
The reason 3d interface haven’t caught on is because there haven’t been terribly many mature ones yet. Project Lookingglass is the only project that is available to the public that I can think of coming close to maturity. And it isn’t fully mature yet. It could use some optimisation and a few features.
But the features it has…are some pretty nifty additions to regular 2d desktops!
FYI, so nobody goes digging through a poorly designed site in search of extra information.
With the development of 3D computer interfaces comming along we will finally get some more space for imagination regarding computer interfaces.
What usefulness will come out of it though might not be so apparent since activity in this area hasn’t been that much yet.
I’m not sure why a 3d interface is necessary – our current methods of interaction with a computer limit the usefulness of a 3d interface. With 2 dimensions, we move a mouse along only 2 axis, giving us a speedy, efficient layer to interact with. Given a 3rd axis, we then have much more requirements when it comes to interaction – and, regardless, we are staring at a 2d screen.
Man, my first reaction to this is to think it is a joke. The way they hype up this product on their site is ridiculous. This platform doesn’t look polished at all. =(. Also, it is only for Mac. =. I feel like this was just some sort of promo for this product by OSNews.
How is it that when marketing people write something (because this blurb does not sound like a developer speaking), they can say so much while giving so little information?
designed from the ground up to break away from old paradigms and provide the interface needs of the next generation
What on earth does that mean?
Actually go to the site to find out what that means! “Company” and “FAQ” tell you about the “Marketing people”, “Overview” explains that the aim is to provide a flexible platform / tools for developers who are “forward-looking.”
bullshit bingo…
btw, it reminds me more of neuromancer nad the gibson system in hackers then it reminds me of minority report
and wasnt minority report mostly 2D?
still, it seems there is more to this then bad 3D graphtics. there seems to be support for input devices outside of the mouse and keyboard. maybe thats where the minority report comparison on their page comes from?
Edited 2006-02-03 16:33
It may (not) work, but anyways it would SO need some more anti-aliasing! o_O
It’s ugly!
– Simon
Now we know what the mystics were looking at in their crystal balls – a 3D interface!
Nice ideas.
For those of us not using Mac, XAML + WPF on Windows has the same capabilities with relatively easy to use code and tools.
I think we’ll start seeing some really cool stuff within 5 years using these platforms.
How is a 3d interface represented on a 2d screen (with mouse/keyboard) far superior to a 2d interface on the same screen? Until 3d enabled input devices, holograms and sensory feedback get incorporated 3d interfaces will still be a half-finished solution.
How is a 3d interface represented on a 2d screen (with mouse/keyboard) far superior to a 2d interface on the same screen?
As it stands it isn’t. But if no one tries we’ll never find out if it might be. Perhaps there are really useful things one can do that no ones ever thought of.
And 3d input devices and stereoscopic screens exist. If these toolkits make it easier for UI people to experiment we might see them come up with something that put these technologies to good use. Once that happens we might see these technologies become more widespread.
Had a brief look at it, looks pretty good, although i’m disappointed it isn’t open source…
I think that most techies experimenting with new ways of doing UI toolkits tend to be developing on the Linux platform at the moment (Gnome and KDE for example).
The fact that it isn’t an open source toolkit will probably result in it becoming a niche product within a niche operating system (OS X)…seems good, but I think they may have killed it before they really got started…
Just my opinion of course
John.