Just as a joystick doesn't cut it as a pointer controller for the traditional 2D desktop metaphor, likewise a mouse probably doesn't cut it for a 3D environment. We probably need something else ... a data glove? Something else?
I actually think that a combination of keyboard and mouse presents a reasonably good 3D interface. Certainly, a variety of pretty good approaches have been tested in games and found useful. Obviously, my personal favourite is the first-person shooter paradigm: the mouse controls POV and the keyboard controls vector. Most of the freebie desktop replacements use this model. A second favourite is the one employed by Homeworld. In this one, a specific navigational point is selected as the origin and POV rotates around that, always looking "in". This interface had many useful features, but is based pretty closely around the idea that the navigational space is enclosed and limited. I think the first-person point of view is better because it automatically suggests paths and separated spaces, which is more natural to our notion of "location" and "purpose".
You bring up the idea of "room" and other similar concepts of location. But does the interface have to imply storage at location?
I'll admit that what I'd be aiming to do is move the current informational model directly from a 2D to a 3D environment. My thoughts are related to what I think of as the benefits of doing so with very little additional modification. The advantage of this, which I'm too lazy or too cowardly to examine personally, is that I believe an existing 3D engine (Doom or Quake by example) could be used as a base for implementing it over the already present file system arrangement. All that would really change is the UI, not the underlying infrastructure.
More importantly, I think most discussion about 3D interfaces is completely theoretical. The existing user interfaces are, in my opinion, based entirely around the applications, which these days means our menu systems. They're stilted and hard (or impossible in some cases) to modify to any extent. And they resemble closed boxes. We don't need a better interface for our menus; we need one for our file systems and data.
Improved "stickyness" of data, so that related things can be found easily, would be important in any interface. But how do we, as users, find the data unless we either employ ubiquitous search engines (so the availability of data is based on meta-data or keywords) or resort back to location? In either case, how do we show the connectedness of the data? The problem is broader than just 2D vs 3D.
Another question -- what widgets are available in 3D? What do they look like? How do I interact with them?
I should show you Worldcraft. This is the dominant editor for Half-Life (and quite a few Quake 2 based) games. The two other editors I've looked at for 3D games have many similarities with Worldcraft, but the problem spaces are identical so that's no surprise. One interesting element of most new editors is that they go to some length to present the editing environment similarly to the game POV where they can. Worldcraft feels a little clunky in this regard, but was certainly pointing the way in the mid-90s.
But it's pretty easy to show what important elements could be taken out of these editors and made part of a highly user-friendly tool for constructing spaces in which to store data. And obviously, there'd be a niche for pre-fab spaces and objects so the user only has to make minor (or no) tweaks.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-02-24 12:40 pm (UTC)I actually think that a combination of keyboard and mouse presents a reasonably good 3D interface. Certainly, a variety of pretty good approaches have been tested in games and found useful. Obviously, my personal favourite is the first-person shooter paradigm: the mouse controls POV and the keyboard controls vector. Most of the freebie desktop replacements use this model. A second favourite is the one employed by Homeworld. In this one, a specific navigational point is selected as the origin and POV rotates around that, always looking "in". This interface had many useful features, but is based pretty closely around the idea that the navigational space is enclosed and limited. I think the first-person point of view is better because it automatically suggests paths and separated spaces, which is more natural to our notion of "location" and "purpose".
You bring up the idea of "room" and other similar concepts of location. But does the interface have to imply storage at location?
I'll admit that what I'd be aiming to do is move the current informational model directly from a 2D to a 3D environment. My thoughts are related to what I think of as the benefits of doing so with very little additional modification. The advantage of this, which I'm too lazy or too cowardly to examine personally, is that I believe an existing 3D engine (Doom or Quake by example) could be used as a base for implementing it over the already present file system arrangement. All that would really change is the UI, not the underlying infrastructure.
More importantly, I think most discussion about 3D interfaces is completely theoretical. The existing user interfaces are, in my opinion, based entirely around the applications, which these days means our menu systems. They're stilted and hard (or impossible in some cases) to modify to any extent. And they resemble closed boxes. We don't need a better interface for our menus; we need one for our file systems and data.
Improved "stickyness" of data, so that related things can be found easily, would be important in any interface. But how do we, as users, find the data unless we either employ ubiquitous search engines (so the availability of data is based on meta-data or keywords) or resort back to location? In either case, how do we show the connectedness of the data? The problem is broader than just 2D vs 3D.
Another question -- what widgets are available in 3D? What do they look like? How do I interact with them?
I should show you Worldcraft. This is the dominant editor for Half-Life (and quite a few Quake 2 based) games. The two other editors I've looked at for 3D games have many similarities with Worldcraft, but the problem spaces are identical so that's no surprise. One interesting element of most new editors is that they go to some length to present the editing environment similarly to the game POV where they can. Worldcraft feels a little clunky in this regard, but was certainly pointing the way in the mid-90s.
But it's pretty easy to show what important elements could be taken out of these editors and made part of a highly user-friendly tool for constructing spaces in which to store data. And obviously, there'd be a niche for pre-fab spaces and objects so the user only has to make minor (or no) tweaks.