Sphere XP Makes GUI 3D

Cypherus writes "I came across a link for a 3d desktop environment. "The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such a icons and applications. Check the videos and screenshots to get the idea.""

Old != Bad

[sinclair44]

Do people actually think these are EASIER to use than the traditional 2D/command line interfaces? Or is it just coolness?

Not impressed

[Lurgen]

3 Dimensional interfaces like these (especially Suns new project) are just annoying. They don't represent any signficant increase in productivity, they aren't going to make your system easier to use - they just look cool, and that's enough to grab attention.

The downside of these interfaces is the ridiculously high processor and memory requirements. All that extra graphic manipulation comes at a price, and I for one don't see any reason to waste processor cycles. What I'd much rather see is somebody developing a faster, more lightweight UI that is a nice combination of OSX and Windows XP. One that chews up LESS memory (instead of more, like this), one that speeds things up.

Then I'll be impressed.

Re:Old != Bad

[xactoguy]

It would be easier in the fact that effectively it gives you more desktop space, and without the complete separation of virtual desktops. Say you have a document, a calculator, and an IDE open. You want to use the calculator with both the IDE and the document. With a virtual desktop you couldn't do that, and with a traditional desktop you'd constantly have to be switching, because most likely you'd have the IDE and document fullscreened. With this, you merely put the calculator between the IDE and document, and rotate your view accordingly.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Project Looking Glass

[dominator2010]

What about Sun's Project Looking Glass that's on their Java Desktop System?

Here's a link [sun.com]

Re:Old != Bad

[badriram]

With this, you merely put the calculator between the IDE and document, and rotate your view accordingly.
And that is easier than hitting Ctrl-Tab or Alt-Tab... give me a break

Re:3D input devices

[Bobdoer]

What? Joysticks aren't cheap enough for you? If you can use it in Quake, why can't you rig it up to work the same way for your 3D desktop?

Re:Not impressed

[epiphani]

I accually think that this is more a "Cargo before the boat" type thing. 3D interfaces would be great. If I could interact with them in a 3D manner.

Take a look at the interfaces used in the matrix 2 and Minority Report for examples of what I mean by 3D interfaces.

3d browsing comes and goes

[dj245]

These thing have come, and they go just as quick. I've seen 3d browsing being pimped at the internet browsing crowd, the hard disk space hogging investigating tools, and various other browsing tools. It always fades away because people hate it. It takes students an entire semester to get comfortable modeling in 3d and thinking in a three-dimensional space. Some don't even get it after the semester is up. I know a couple students that will never really get it. They are pushing this on Joe Average?

In 3d rendering enviroments and cad programs, a sharp and tough learning curve is anticipated and acceptable. But in web and file browsers it is not. File and web browsers must be intuitive. Ittuitiveness is a myth however, there is no human instinct that associates double-clicking with running a 'program'. It is merely congruent with expected behavior. Same with volume controls where increasing volume is anticlockwise. If I made a volume dial where increasing volume was clockwise, people would be righteously pissed because it clashed with expected behavior.

And that, in a nutshell, is why it will fail.

Re:OT: What I want from a 3D GUI project

[LostCluster]

Any 3D GUI is going to have to account for 2D programs running around its environment, just like Windows had to account for DOS programs and Linux GUIs always let you have command line windows.

Somebody's got to get a 3D desktop environment stable before anybody bothers developing on top of that platform.

Re:Not impressed

[Jack Porter]

The downside of these interfaces is the ridiculously high processor and memory requirements. All that extra graphic manipulation comes at a price, and I for one don't see any reason to waste processor cycles.

Yeah, the 2D GUI will never take off - what a waste of CPU and memory! Remember when 2D graphics acceleration was a selling point of video cards? They relieved your CPU of the burden of the 2D GUI's bitblits and fills.

These days many people already have a 3D accelerator capable of doing all the 3D number crunching required - "wasting CPU cycles" is a moot point.

This is useless to me.

[ChaoticLimbs]

I don't want new WAYS to use the existing functionality of my computer. I want new TOOLS, new things I can do that I could not do before, or things which were complex now made simple. I want my computer to understand spoken instructions in sentence form. I want to tell my computer " Find all of the image files in the computer where the majority color is orange". I want to tell my computer "Show me a list of all of the files on my computer which have been modified or accessed by a user process in the last 15 minutes." and get no system and log files as a result. I want my computer to actually know the purpose of each file its OS is built from. I want to ask it if anything is different between this bootup and last. WHY is the industry looking to add superfluous eyecandy to the same functionality?
It's like being sold a 1930 Ford with a new, prettier body for 2004 but still having the old rattletrap engine.
Those apps that need 3d will HAVE it (Quake) Find ways I can do things FASTER with less effort!!

Re:Old != Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is easier than hitting Ctrl-Tab or Alt-Tab

Alt-Tab for switching breaks down when you have 10 things open.

(I make no comment on whether the 3d desktop thing would help that or not)

Re:OT: What I want from a 3D GUI project

[zytheran]

Problems with 2D paradigm.
1 The real world isn't 2D. People have to learn that icons mean things and all about clicking and double clicking to make it do stuff (i.e. run) So there is this whole training thing. Those who have helped show the older generation how to use PC's know all about this.

2 2D is really limited space. You have a 15"->20" display that has borders.Unless windows go wrong you can't put things off screen. The real world is not like this, I can turn around and put stuff on the table behind me, or on the floor, or on the shelf. I don't have a tiny little workspace, no-one does. Yes , Linux, Irix can have multiple "windows", but the whole thing doesn't scroll, you just choose another rectangle to look at. Although we accept this , take some time to look around your cube, office or kitchen. The real world is not so constrained, why should the virtual one???
3 In the real world I like piling things so I put related things together. This requires 3D. Try this on 2D and you either get a mess or require "folders" to put things in. These folders are just more 2D..
4 Relationships between objects. Our whole brain has evolved to handle 3D relationships. e.g. the files are on the table, the calender is near the phone, the phone is near the window. Our brains thrive on this and it works really well because our brains are good at 3D mapping. Living in a 2D icon based world is mentally crippling. We have to label things with words to know what they are, we need folders and tree structures for directories. These might have seemed a good idea at the time but did anyone ever do some testing to see how effective these paradigms were? Anyone?? Of course we (and in particular younger people) take this all for granted but who says it is any good? Think outside the square people. Icons, folders, windows??? Come on!!

What do people think about having a UI which is a window into a 3D world. It looks 3D because it really is. The calender looks like a calender and is where you would expect it. The Inbox looks like an inbox and is on your table. Your diary is on the table and open to today. You software manuals are on the shelf and look like books, when you move closer you can read the spines.No training required.When you move an cursor (think focus of gaze) over what you want to do icons appear near the object with a list of tasks it can do appear. Move your icon/point of interest away and they go away. Walk down the hall and there is Fred's office , there's Freds stuff. Fred might let you borrow his stuff or he might not. Walk out of that door over there and anything and everything changes and your in the middle of a game. It's ALL transparent and like the real world. (Ok, the game bit is an extension but think local paintball)

Well, anyway, been there, done that, got funding, got business plans, no-one was really interested (including Microsoft). They all like little 2D screens and icons.No-one could clue out a 3D based UI. Search for Cyberterm in the archives and the VR print magazines from the early 90's. (Our 3D interface actually preceded Windows 3.1)
After 10 years of taking it from a hobby to a company and then nowhere we have given up.
(PS The company wasn't called Cyberterm, thats some dude in Florida who got the name before us)

Re:Old != Bad

[jafomatic]

MS Windows-like multiple document interface that demands to take up the whole screen

Demands what? Windows MDI, since win2000 (office 2000, I think?) hasn't required a full screen (if it ever did) at all. There are plenty of apps that will even let you detach a window from the MDI if you feel that's even necessary (delphi4 and up, mIRC, trillian?).

Considering those, I'd suggest it's the application developers among us who are making MDI become a problem; it isn't the OS.

Re:3D input devices

[empaler]

It's called gorilla arm [astrian.net] (the Jargon Dictionary)

Intel and 3D OS Product Demo

[lxt]

I once saw an UK Intel executive showing a video of a proposed OS, which was 3D and based around hexagons. In theory it looked like a nice idea, but five years later and I've heard nothing of it since. Users simply prefer working in 2D.

Re:Old != Bad

[Lumpy]

Say you have a document, a calculator, and an IDE open. You want to use the calculator with both the IDE and the document. With a virtual desktop you couldn't do that,

I do this every day.. I have 3 monitors on my development PC at work.

"rotate your view" is worthless to me. I need to see all three at the same time, multiple monitors is the only solution to that. Actually I can do the above with only 2 monitors, something that is far simpler and dirt cheap on a PC today.

I think you are still not taking it far enough

[SmallFurryCreature]

The desk anology is a flawed one. Desks are not easy or efficient to use. Hunting for a calculator just to do a sum. Searching for the stapler then hunting for staples just to attach an image to a document. TOO MUCH WORK.

Of course the PC desktop (2D or 3D) is exactly the same. Hunting in the start menu (or whatever you call it) for the calculater. Hunting in the menu for the option attach image.

Ideally there would be no apps for me to start and stop. Rather the OS would "know" what I am trying to do and do it for me. Kinda like a real secretary does (a really good one). Real spellchecking, real document formatting, real dictation, real file retrieval, real fact finding.

Currently that seems impossible. Even a simple thing as spell checking is so complex most people don't even bother with it. Computers are not just dumb they are moronic.

The entire 2D desktop interface is just gludges to get around the moronicness of the OS. We got a HUGE taskbar taking up valuable space just because the OS has no clue as wich app we want to use and wich we don't, we add shortcuts constantly on screen just because noone has found a way to launch the right app at the right time.

I am not saying I got the answer or even that there is an answer. But just like drawers, putting things behind you, extra large desks, etc are in ways of getting around the limitations of a desk. All current desktop designs are just ways of getting around the limitations of the OS.

Ideally we want a star trek like computer. One wich "magically" can detect what we want to do and do it. Until then all we got is gludges.

Yes, it's the coolness...

[Lorem_Ipsum]

because it is really no easier to switch between items in "3D" than with the other types of control features (taskbar, "virtual" desktops, etc.). They all require a physical action by the user to move the focus to the wanted item. Having a 3D desktop is just another take on the "virtual" desktop idea.

It really comes down to the question of how you want to deal with partitioning your work space when you have more items than can be effectively displayed at one time. Your best options are to:

1. Increase the screen size (multiple monitors, elumens VisionStation [elumens.com], Liebermann Inc.'s Grand Canyon monitor [go-l.com], etc.
2. Go with the desktop metaphor that has the best "virtual" desktop interaction mechanism, i.e., the one which makes it easiest for you to navigate among your various items.

Now a truly useful and cool interface would be to have the large thin panel display from "The Minority Report" with complete and accurate voice and gesture recognition.

Re:Old != Bad

[kabocox]

I may be alittle slow. What is the logical difference "from rotating your view" from "switching apps"? I still have to take some active input to change the screen. What is so hard about using alt-tab?

Re:3D input devices

[adamfranco]

while a GUI allows you to do common things faster.

I think that this is where we are having a slight misunderstanding. The 2D GUI isn't faster than the CLI, but has other added benefits (easier to see relationships, ability to see multiple outputs on the screen at the same time, viewing of fonts/markup, etc) that outweigh the added slowness. For a speed comparison, several common tasks are below:

Copying a file:

CLI:
1.type $ cp /home/adam/mypaper.txt /somewhere/else/

GUI:
1. Go to "MyComputer" or "Finder"
2. [Double]Click on "Documents"
3. Go to "MyComputer" or "Finder" again or move hands to keyboard for CTRL+N to get a second window
4-6. click several times to browse the second window to /somewhere/else
7. Drag the icon for mypaper.txt from the first to the second window.

Playing resizing an image:

CLI:
1. type $ mogrify -resize 640x480 cockatoo.jpg

GUI:
1-3. Open a filebrowser and browse to the image
OR
1. Go to "StartMenu" --> applications --> Adobe --> Photoshop
2. Click File --> Open
3+. Browse to cockatoo.jpg, click ok
4. Click Image --> Image Size
5. enter your resize values in the fields, click ok
6. Click File --> Save
OR
6. Click CTRL+S

In these and most other situations, the CLI will be much much faster, however, the added value of the 2D GUI is huge. For instance, being able to see what your image looks like when its resized is a great added value. Likewise, being easily able to see the hierarchy tree when using the filebrowser means that you don't have to keep as much in your head. How this applies to the 3D desktop is that the 3D interface does not have to maintain or reduce the overhead of interaction over the 2D environment, but it must add enough value to the environment to make that extra interaction overhead worth the trouble.

I have yet to try a true 3D desktop and will wait until I have to make judgements on whether the interface overhead is worth the benefit.

Re:3D input devices

[master_p]

Not really:

CLI:
1.type $ cp /home/adan/mypaper.txt /somewhere/else/
file not found
2.type $ cp /home/adam/mypaper.txt /somewhere/else
(oops..i just copied it to a file instead of a directory)
3. rm /somewhere/else/
file not found
4. rm /somewhere/else
5. type $ cp /home/adam/mypaper.txt/ /somewhere/else
directory not found
6. type $ cp home/adam/mypaper.txt/ /somewhere/else
file not found
7. type $ cp /h -TAB
8. type $ cp /home/a -TAB
9. type $ cp /home/adam/ -TAB
(TAB brings nothing because the directory contains mypaper.txt and mypaper1.txt.
10.type $ cp /home/adan/mypaper.txt /somewhere/else/

GUI (MS Windows):
1. click 'my documents' from the taskbar (with folders view on)
2. click and drag 'mypaper.txt' to /somewhere/else/

Playing resizing an image:

CLI:
1. type $ mogrify -resize 640x480 cockato.jpg
file not found
2. type $ mogrify -resize 640x480 cockatoo.jpg
640x480 is not supported at this color depth
3. type $ mogrify -resize-help
4. type $ mogrify -resize-help | more (since the help did not fit on the screen)
5. man mogrify (since the command line help was inadequate)
6. hit space - space - space to reach the desired section
7. read the options
8. note down the available options
9. type $ mogrify -resize 640x480 -dither cockatoo.jpg

GUI:
1. open photoshop from start menu
2. open image
3. select resize from menu - observe 640x480 greyed out
4. click dither check box
5. select 640x480