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."
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Member since:2005-07-24
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4. Something for that 3d card you bought (you can't really get around it anymore) to do.
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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 1680x1050.
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.
Member since:2005-06-29
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.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-06-29
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!
Member since:2006-01-02
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.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-01-22
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.
Member since:2005-12-31
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.
Member since:2006-12-20
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 :-)
Member since:
2005-06-29
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.