Submitted by Project Looking Glass has hit the magical 1.0 mark: “This release is the culmination of 3 years of work, starting with Hideya san who originally conceived of a bold, new type of window system, through the initial shake down of the proof-of-concept demo by an internal Sun community, followed by the open sourcing of the technology, which generated such enormous interest that it brought down the java.net servers several times. From that point on many people from around the globe have contributed to the project; contributing to the core, contributing applications, performing testing, writing and translating documentation, etc. The project owners (Hideya, Paul, Krishna and myself) are very grateful for all of the great contributions we have received from you, the LG community.”
I honestly thought sun abandoned this project.
Way to go PLG team!
…however, I can’t help but wonder how relevant this is to the Linux community, with the great strides that XGL/AIGLX and Compiz/Beryl have made in the past year…
This has absolutely nothing to do with XGL/Compiz/Aero/etc. Those are still 2D desktops, only now with some 3D effects. That’s all. Project Looking Glass, on the other hand, is a true 3D interface (still hindered by 2D input devices and screen, of course). This is a major difference.
“””Project Looking Glass, on the other hand, is a true 3D interface”””
Question: Why do we need a true 3D interface?
I’ve yet to see XGL/AIGLX/Looking Glass do anything that couldn’t be done better in pure 2D.
Looking Glass demos look just like XGL demos. Except they are not quite as glitzy.
And all the 3D desktops look useless to me. (As in “no better than what we already have.”) Essentially the UI equivalent of the dot.com bubble.
Just my opinion.
> And all the 3D desktops look useless to me
Probably they should not just transform, but apply depth-of-field and HDR lighting effects to make these windows even more harder to read.
Personally, I prefer maximized fullscreen applications.
I use overlapping windows mostly for drag’n’drop and visual data compare purposes.
and i believe that is a usage pattern that is repeated all over the world.
its interesting to think that the first windowing system did not allow for overlapping windows as it was believed to confuse users.
just the other day i made some quick sketches of a ion-like windowing system, taking into account its inability to have overlapping windows for messaging and similar.
what i ended up with was a system that could use one or more tabbed group on screen based on how big the screen was. and any “popup” dialogs would be delegated to the bottom right corner of whatever group it was relevant for (ok so it flys in the face of some “laws” of gui design, so sue me).
when one of those gets fired of it will lock input for whatever program its relevant to but will not steal focus in any way.
i even want to use said dialogs for stuff like saving files by use of drag and drop. when a save is initiated said popup will contain a icon. this icon can then be dragged to wherever one wants to save the file. risc os anyone?
i included a top bar message area that would work as a ticker (i think thats the word for it) with a permanent clock in the top right. said clock would also work as a link to a programs list, and as a “tray” (as i suspect something like that will be needed).
the ticker will naturally scroll from right to left, unless the mouse is placed on the bar. if so then putting the mouse to the left edge will scroll messages from left to right and similar on the right side. if dragged close to the center, the ticker will stop.
if a message is clicked a dialog will drop down, or the program that sent it will be focused and highlighted.
i had to design a tab based IM program tho as the normaly expected im gui do not really work inside this kind of a windowing system.
thing is that i suspect this windowing system could (with minor modifications) work equally well on a pdaphone as on a pc. but it would be unlikely that more then one window group would be open at the same time on a small screen.
in fact, one of my dream devices is a pdafone that will turn into a pc when hooked up to a keyboard, mouse, screen and bigger power supply. optionally have a computing booster that is a cpu and ram that the pdafone can offload tasks to that it cant normally manage. the keyboard and screen could potentially be able to connect together so that it becomes a kind of laptop for transportation.
yep, im nuts
Personally, I prefer maximized fullscreen applications.
I use overlapping windows mostly for drag’n’drop and visual data compare purposes.
I don’t think maximizing a window on a 1600×1024 screen and looking at all the empty spaces in the window is very visually appealing.
3d desktops exist to take advantage of 3d hardware (which has been developing quickly for 10 years while 2d hardware has stalled completely). In order to sell them you add a few glitzy affects and tell the marketing department its “3d” so they can excite people over it.
It offers you:
1. An interface that eats fewer CPU cycles (if done correctly).
2. An interface that allows a better drawing paradigm for programmers (no double buffering necessary, if you’re willing to ditch backward compatibility).
3. Affects such as expose which allow users to quickly view things that won’t actually fit on their desktop without using icons and summary text.
4. Something for that 3d card you bought (you can’t really get around it anymore) to do.
5. Better video playback capability (gl instead of one video on hardware and the rest not).
But I agree that a 3 dimensional interface makes no sense on a 2 dimensional screen, however, you don’t need 3d hardware to make a 3d interface.
“””
4. Something for that 3d card you bought (you can’t really get around it anymore) to do.
“””
Oh, believe me. I *love* 3D. I’ll never forget how stunned I was when I saw the original Quake for the first time. (I was a little late for Doom.)
In fact, I had just finished with a Quake4 level when I saw your response.
My views about 3D vs 2D are pretty much like my views about GUI vs character-based: Use the right tool for the job.
I can, and have, played Quake on a Wyse60 at 38400 baud with the ascii art lib. (It’s a drop in replacement for svgalib.)
But I prefer it on my 22″ flat panel at 1680×1050.
Conversely, I could administer my system with the Doom based admin tools that some of the more over-imaginative members of the community have conjured up.
But I prefer to use the console utilities, thank-you-very-much. 😉
2D is 2D and 3D is 3D and never the twain shall meet.
They’ve been meeting for 15 years though. Doom was a 2d program that used a simple, yet novel, illusion to appear 3d.
Then comes Quake, which is 3d, but keeps 2d interfaces for setting your game up (you know, the intro menu and all subsequent controls). Those 2d interfaces are rendered with 3d hardware though (I’m sure because it’d be very difficult to work windows forms controls into a directx context).
Then they met in OS X with 3d hardware performing 2d interfaces. And they met before with 2d hardware using image tricks to show 3d scenes for interfacing with your computer and gaming (that awful 3d desktop environment from like 1991, I think Microsoft called it Bob or something; and Myst).
They’ve been meeting for a long time, I’m not sure where you’ve been.
Just to be clear, the real meaning in my post was the “use the right tool for the job” part. You are focusing on the bit of humor at the end.
I agree with the examples you cite. They come under the heading of using the right tool for the job at the time the job was done.
But I agree that a 3 dimensional interface makes no sense on a 2 dimensional screen
Depends on the app, there are quite a few applications which have 3D interfaces and manage to work very successfully on 2D screens – games.
We’re talking about creatively useful interfaces. Video editing, coding, writing, research (reading), etc. Not playing games.
While I’m not convinced that it’s impossible to make a useful 3d environment (useful meaning useful for a work which produces creative or valuable content) I haven’t seen a lot of it yet. Right now most applications which are used to produce something, other than stimulis to your brain, are 2d.
But thank you for pointing out the obvious!
4. You should be able to hop over to Newegg and buy a motherboard with near as much graphics power as a Geforce 4, and with newer features, for under $60 with shipping. Everyone getting a new PC will have enough 3D horsepower for a nice desktop offloading work from the CPU.
That’s what I said…
Not quite. You said card, which is often not even an option on many new computers. Even two years ago (just before the recent ATi and nV IGP chipsets), a separate card would have been a requirement for any guarantee of performance–or compatibility.
There are a lot of GFX cards. But we should have an option for soft 3D rendering in case we want to get rid of proprietary drivers.Even on WIN$$$ Transgaming has a decent soft 3d renderer. From what I’ve seen on the PLG site, only HW rendering is enabled. Am I wrong? Can you give me more hints? I have ordered a P4 531 which has HT. I want to take it to the maximum. Soft 3D rendering and PLG could be a good benchmark.
But 2d/3d desktops are about the UI paradigm. What you describe is mostly the benefits of using 3d hardware, which can be used for 2d desktops too. In fact, I thought that’s what XGL is about.
> But I agree that a 3 dimensional interface makes no
> sense on a 2 dimensional screen, however, you don’t
> need 3d hardware to make a 3d interface.
You said it: A 3d interface makes little sense on a 2d screen (whether using 3d hardware or not). A 2d interface makes sense, and using 3d hardware for it even more so, since that allows a great deal of parallel computing on modern hardware.
While I can certainly understand some of the sceptic comments about 3D desktop GUI, and we are still with Looking Glass in the early stage. I truely believe lot of them have to do with the fact that for the past 20 years the Windows, Linux and MAC desktops have locked us in a 2D windowing world. There are zillions of things that 3D representation and navigation can do to help increase productivity on your desktop to better organize, manipulate and display information. With increased network bandwidth, gigabytes memory, hardware 3D graphics driven by video games on PCs, it likely we are going to see a natural evolution from the 2D web to the 3D web. As humans, we are more accustomed to live and function in a 3D world. The recent success of 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life is just the beginning of a new immersive 3D user experience on the 3D web. Looking Glass provides a platform neutral 3D GUI foundation to build a 3D desktop. The project is open-source and we are welcoming any contributors to help shape tomorrow desktop. There are certainly lot of unanswered questions, but lot of cool stuffs to work on 🙂
> While I can certainly understand some of the sceptic comments about
> 3D desktop GUI, and we are still with Looking Glass in the early stage.
I didn’t mean to discourage you
It’s a nice project, but I am sceptic not because the idea of a 3d UI paradigm, or about it being resource-hungry. I’m arguing that the input/output devices themselves (read: keyboard, mouse, monitor) aren’t adequate.
With proper VR equipment, things may be different (goggles, gloves, etc.). In that case, a proper 3d UI may be way better than a 2d interface on a monitor. But I expect the mixture won’t be.
Agree that 3D input/output devices will provide greater experience. We did a demo of Looking Glass controlled
by a glove:
http://forums.java.net/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=21025&tstart=0
There are still a lot of 3D presence, orientation and
navigation effect that you can do in a 2D screen.
In the end, as long as the user sees a 2D desktop it doesn’t matter if it is true 3D or not. The question is even would we like a true 3D interface.
To get good user interaction you would probably need some kind of input device that the user moves in 3D. My guess is most such devices would result in more work related injuries due to muscle stress.
To get good user interaction you would probably need some kind of input device that the user moves in 3D. My guess is most such devices would result in more work related injuries due to muscle stress.
Well, the thing is, the more *different* kinds of movements you make, the less strain is placed on particular movements. RSI is not about the movements an sich, but about the same few isolated *repetitive* (the R in RSI) movements. Making a 3D input device, which i.e. moves along an extra axis, might actually *reduce* RSI complains because extra movements are used during interaction, reducing the stress on the others (you are spreading the strain on more different movements).
There is, of course, a 3D input device out on the market today and being used by (I think, by now) millions of people who seem pretty happy with it. Except for the whole wrist strap thing.
Yeah, I’m talking about the wiimote.
It would help eliminate some types of RSI, but there would be added strain on the hands/wrists from having to move an input device vertically as well. One of the most interesting sections in Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital are the parts about the history of input devices; apparently most of the focus before the invention of the mouse was on “light pens” (basically a stylus, but with a more sophisticated “pen”). But one of the reasons they were supplanted by the mouse was that researchers found that holding ones’ arm up to the screen for extended periods of time caused excessive arm/wrist/hand strain.
I think that a true revolution in human-computer interfaces will require a corresponding revolution in the underlying technology. And personally, I think that sort of revolution is more likely to come from a John Carmack or a William Gibson than either of the Steves (Jobs or Ballmer). Of course, I could be wrong – I remember reading a comment by Carmack (in a Wired interview when Quake1 was being developed) about him having read Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and being of the opinion that Stephenson’s “metaverse” could be made a reality with even just the technology of that era. I’ve been waiting for his claims to bear fruit for the last ten years, however, so that’s why I say “I could be wrong”
An mass confusion.
“The computer says to go pick up my phone. But apparently it forgot I had a cell phone, so when I picked that up it didn’t work. So I walked into the kitchen and it started workin’!”
“Why would it want you to pickup your phone in order to type phone into Word? How the heck do you type ‘the’ anyway?!”
“I don’t know, I miss e-d though…”
This has absolutely nothing to do with XGL/Compiz/Aero/etc. Those are still 2D desktops, only now with some 3D effects.
True, but with some of the latest plugins, such as the 3D view (which “stacks” windows on top of one another), the boundary is becoming blurry. I understand the distinction, though.
What about that experimental 3D desktop in which you could “stack” files and organize them with mouse gestures…do you guys remember how it was called? I remember seeing a video about this, and thinking it was very innovative.
Lowfat?
http://macslow.thepimp.net/?page_id=18
BumpTop?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SWe-TIy2Lbs
Yeah, it’s the second one, bumptop. I found that one to be pretty innovative, though I’m still not convinced that it is more efficient than the classical 2D WIMP paradigm.
(Yes, I said paradigm. Bite me.)
I think you might have been referring to a program written by opengl superhacker MacSlow called lowfat (http://macslow.thepimp.net/?page_id=18) or another one called bumptop (http://honeybrown.ca/Pubs/BumpTop.html)
What I wonder is how many concepts those projects can share.
looking good, is there a java webstart version available?
They needed a 3D desktop so that Jurassic Park makes sense. “Hey, it’s Unix! I know this!”
Well that particular scene did show a real unix system from SGI. The 3d file manager which was used is called FNS and can be downloaded here http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html. While the interface is real and not made up as many believe (including you apparently), it was nothing more than a toy.
Edited 2006-12-20 22:26
Not only are you missing FSN, but Jurassic Park used SGIs, not Suns.
I tend to agree more with both Google and (the creative folks hidden deep in the corporate blubber at) Microsoft who seem to think that the future of UI is in simplicity, with FEWER graphical metaphors, not more, driven by:
1) Voice recognition
2) Natural language processing
3) Somatic input processing
I envision a future where there will no longer be computers per se, but rather *everything* will be a “computer”, it will be all around: lots of “smart” embedded devices communicating to each other, holograms, all that cool shiznit.
Looking Glass is neat, but I don’t really see what value 3d on a 2d screen can give.
Edited 2006-12-20 22:49
we have no problems with 3d games on a 2d screen. so instead of looking around the room for bad guys you look around for your files?
> we have no problems with 3d games on a 2d screen. so
> instead of looking around the room for bad guys you
> look around for your files?
But the point of a UI is to be simple: In a good UI, you find a file in the shortest time possible. When you want to do something with the file, it works. The UI shouldn’t make any unforseeable twists.
A 3d game is interesting because you cannot see the bad guy behind that corner. When you want to kill him, it doesn’t work because he runs and hides. And there are unforseeable twists that make the story interesting.
In short, most games would be boring if the whole game acted like a good UI.
I tend to…think that the future of UI is in simplicity, with FEWER graphical metaphors, not more, driven by:
1) Voice recognition
2) Natural language processing
3) Somatic input processing
I definitely think that computers will never be “easy to use” for the average person unless and until (and I think it is still more a case of “unless” than “until”) they can understand spoken language.
Because, whether GUI fans like to admit it or not, the GUI is still more restrictive than the commandline, BUT, Whatever anyone may think about the beauties of the UNIX command line (let’s leave other systems out of it for the moment), “delete all occurences of the words ‘fanatic’ and ‘shill'” or “move all of my holiday photos to the hard drive” is definitely more “intuitive” than either “mv *holiday*.png /home” or even “point-at-home-folder-icon-double click, point-at-digital-camera-icon-double-click, press down mouse button and draw box around holiday photos, drag from digital camera window to home folder window”.
The problem is that natural languages are too ambiguous. Even in human to human communication there is a lot trouble with semantics. If we can’t understand each other, what chance is there that an algorithm can be developed that can? Sure we can try, but it’ll screw up 90 percent of the time just like we humans do.
One solution would be to use an artificial language where you can’t make sentences ambiguous (or at least if you try, you’ll have to jump through very many hoops). Lojban is one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban
From what I’ve read, it seems a very interesting project. However, I have yet to learn the language.
An easier alternative would be the computer just asking for disambiguation. People does so very seldom, because of our complex psychology, but computers aren’t restricted in the same way (they are in others, of course).
Yep. Which is exactly why I think it is still a case of “unless”, not “until”.
I agree that language is more intuitive, however, it *is* less precise. Also, there are issues with voice command in noisy/crowded environments.
All in all, I think many people are looking for the next step in UI design, and that’s all good…at the same time, there’s a reason why the WIMP model is used, and that’s because it works.
To make an analogy, the hammer hasn’t changed much over the last 5,000 years (with the possible exception of pneumatic nail drivers), and that’s because its form is perfectly adapted to its function.
didn’t you’ll see paycheck
or
I, robot
or
……
Why didn’t they call it, “GoBalmer”? He was the first one who used this way of communication 🙂
Will this be useful in drafing, modelling, and manufacturing environments?
WYSIWYG to Scale?
You need those special glasses to get the full effect.
Hmm.. aside from yet another Desktop environment, however cool 3D window management might be, it seems more or less an exercise in Java 3D. From the FAQ:
Q. Does the LG3D API will replace Java 3D APIs?
A. No. Actually, the LG3D API leverages Java 3D API,and provides additional features including an animation system (to simplify writing user experience-rich applications) and APIs for 3D window manager development and interaction.
Q. Is a completely new 3D widget set API planned?
A. We plan to leverage well-defined rich Swing widget API as our LG3D widget API instead of developing yet another widget API. Our approach is to provide “View” implementation of Swing’s MVC architecture using the LG3D API, so that Swing components are rendered in the 3D space. This will be a hot public project and we welcome your participation at https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/
well what can I say it sux. LOL sorry didn’t like it. It felt hard to use very slow and well unfinished.
Personally i think LG gives a nice esthetic view.
They turned the grand vision over to those less qualified to perfect it.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a less intuitive filemanager than this fm3D..
Sure, when I twist the window, the icons remain in 3D space, but there seems to be a lot of work to be done in the interface department. Menus aren’t a bad thing, neither is text.
Sun showed this thing off to early. Once they did, everyone else (Apple, Microsoft, OSS developers) jumped all over their 3D-space ideas and implemented them in a perfectly digestible fashion. No need for the massive Java overhead, just make your native display toolkit better.
Here are my quick thoughts after trying this out for just about 10 minutes.
1. cpu usage constantly hovered at around %10 and top revealed a process by the name of “java” was the culprit
2. an overall lack of polish
as a day to day desktop this would not work. it is a very interesting experiment though.
This has absolutely nothing to do with XGL/Compiz/Aero/etc. Those are still 2D desktops, only now with some 3D effects.
Bzzzzz…. wrong. Both are implemented in a 3D space (OpenGL etc). It’s just that the other interfaces have chosen to present stuff as a flat projection (like a whiteboard is a flat surface on a 3d world -the real one).
And, as another poster noted, it’s just a matter of writing some plugins (for example in beryl) and bang, you have windows spinning, tilting, circling or whatever.
to install it on their SunOS 5.11.x to make a real amazing Apple/windows/linux killer desktop system then they will fail.
They need to determine first weather they will stick with the stone age CDE or move to GNOME completely.
Second to supply the OS with useful GUI Tools to simplify administration.
Then finally I will decide on running looking glass or not.
SUN is selling servers. Most of their customers are very much satisfied with CDE. It is going to be very hard to convince their customers to use GNOME. I predict that the same customers are not remotely interested in a 3D desktop. Why should they?
Many Solaris users already use Gnome and Sun customers do care about 3D desktop and the next wave of innovations around the 3D web.