3D Painting
Depth can be added to existing applications in a 3D GUI to enhance them. 2D Paint programs could benefit from this, This wouldn't make the program into a 3D modeller but rather the painter could use multiple 2D layers in front of one another to create depth. Traditional 2D painting uses a number of techniques to fake depth and this is really just an extension of this.
3D could however create a better interface for the drawing tools: In computerised painting there are a number of different pallet types to chose from, rather than selecting from a menu and picking them one by these could all be placed on screen at once in a window, the window would then be shrunk and moved to the background. When a new pallet is required just pointing at the window would bring it forward, pallets could then be dragged out or exchanged. When done the window is just pushed back out of the way. To get rid of a pallet when it's not needed simply grab it and throw it in the direction of the shrunken window.
If you are an OS X user this may sound familiar, it has similarities to the dock's "warp" effect. This technique could work for different kinds of application, you could be doing 2D painting or even word processing, it's a technique which will allow the 3D interface to be used to enhance a 2D interface without replacing it, again you get the best of both worlds.
A scenario:
3D can benefit many areas which can be used together, in the following scenario I put a number of different areas together with a potentially very powerful end result.
A guy goes out with a 3D camera (actually 2 2D ones spaced apart). He proceeds to take a few pictures of buildings and other objects from various angles.
Then he gets home and plugs the camera into a desktop PC (this is one of the people who has one) which is connected to a 3D screen. He then uses the screen to go through the photos combining the multiple photos into 3D objects, the computer makes guesses for any parts he hasn't got images for. This is all an easy task as it'll be done by picking up the objects and manipulating them by hand, the computer will scan his eyes and hands so it knows where he's looking.
He then takes these objects and inserts them into a 3D modelling package and creates landscapes. Into the landscapes he then adds objects of people, these aren't just dumb 3D representations of people. They have AI software controlling them so they can be made to walk around scenes, the AI software knows how people look and how they move so when directed they will move properly.
This sofware will be better though, it will also know how people look close up and even how they talk. Our user shall then give the actors instructions to move about and talk to one another. The computer will render this in 3D in real time, no previews will be necessary as this computer will have the horsepower to generate ultra high quality "photon mapped" [7] images in real time. He can view the outcome and adjust things if he doesn't like how it looks. As with any 3D package he can move lights around and change the camera parameters.
In this manner our future computer user will be able to make an entire movie to almost Hollywood grade visual standards at home, whether the movie is any good is a different matter altogether however. This may not be the future of real movie production but it'll help speed up the process a lot and will enable TV stations to produce low cost TV series.
Most of this has already been predicted and some has already been done - You think all the armies in Lord of the Rings were real? This is an application where a 3D display with a 3D interface and massive computing power will work to greatly enhance the process. It's exactly the sort of thing computers will be capable of in the future and will be used for.
Add more interactivity, remove the actors lines and you'll have a system for producing games. In the future when you play the game of a movie perhaps you'll just be playing a different version of the movie.
- "Future of Computing, Page 1/4"
- "Future of Computing, Page 2/4"
- "Future of Computing, Page 3/4"
- "Future of Computing, Page 4/4"
