3D Windowing System Developed Using Wayland, Oculus Rift 72
An anonymous reader writes Developed as part of a university master thesis is this "truly 3D" windowing system environment. The 3D desktop was developed as a Qt Wayland compositor and output to an Oculus Rift display and then controlled using a high-precision Razer mouse. Overall, it's interesting research for bringing 2D windows into a 3D workspace using Wayland and the Oculus Rift. The code is hosted as the Motorcar Compositor. A video demonstration is on YouTube.
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Your comment brought to mind the dopest accessory ever for the NES, as immortalized in the epic film "The Wizard". Yes, I'm referring to the Power Glove.
Those little shits won't stand a chance at Super Mario Bros. 3 now.
What I predict is (Score:2)
Less productiviy.
Visually appealing stuff is nice, but the best way to use a word processor or a spreadsheet is still the good old flat desktop with no bells and whistles.
Turn your head to switch documents (Score:3)
the best way to use a word processor or a spreadsheet is still the good old flat desktop with no bells and whistles
Unless you want to quickly view more documents than your desk has monitors. This could let you have 180 degrees of documents surrounding you. A securities day trader would climax over this.
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"180 degrees of low-rez, headache-inducing documents might just make that hypothetical trader of yours shoot himself in the face"
So, what you're saying is that this should be implemented immediately then?
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Well then let's work on getting him and his colleagues those monitors right away!
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The inherent problem here is that you really need more resolution than any of the current options are offering if you're going to do Real Work(tm) in 3d.
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History indicates that the resolution will increase rather quickly.
Re:Turn your head to switch documents (Score:4, Insightful)
the best way to use a word processor or a spreadsheet is still the good old flat desktop with no bells and whistles
Unless you want to quickly view more documents than your desk has monitors. This could let you have 180 degrees of documents surrounding you. A securities day trader would climax over this.
CTRL+TAB is faster than turning and focusing on a different monitor.
Next challenger, please.
But does it help the user understand faster? (Score:3)
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Peripheral vision for document reading? LOL!
Spatial relationship processing? LOL! LOL!
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CTRL+TAB is faster than turning and focusing on a different monitor.
Next challenger, please.
Not really. Yes, if you are turning 180 degrees and trying to find something, then maybe. If I am just cocking my head 30 degrees or so in any direction, my eyes and neck are considerably faster. Anything in the generally forward area is going to MUCH faster than alt/ctrl tab.
Tabbing requires me to refocus my attention and try to understand the new things being displayed to me. Moving my gaze about does not require rediscovery.
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Funny you should say that. [slashdot.org]
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I don't think this is meant to be used in a real world environment. Not yet at least.
It's a nice proof of concept.
What I've really wanted was a virtual desktop where if i turned my head left, I got a palette or brushes or debugging inspector or something and looking forward gave me my main workspace. Looking up gives me mail or something.
I don't know if it'll work in reality, but...
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I'm not sure you're entirely right. The 2D UI has evolved, in a way, as a metaphor to interactions with real world items. A 3D UI will do the same. Windows will still be needed in a 3D interface, much like how a book or notepad or projector screen is needed in our 3D reality. It's not an artifact of the older interface, but rather a natural way in which we parcel and digest information.
Mechanism: check. Now policy (Score:3)
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Indeed. In fact while I can see value in occasionally having the ability to arbitrarily orient windows in 3-space, I suspect having them default to the surface of a head-centered sphere at roughly arms length, oriented parallel to lines of latitude, would probably be the optimal solution. Movement would default to polar translation, with the window plane automatically rotating to remain remain tangent to the sphere, with the addition of being able to adjust depth as well. There's likely not many reasons
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Working from the inside of a [virtual] sphere would be pretty sweet. Once you start sphere hopping though, you'll need a metaverse to navigate between them.
What's old is new again (Score:5, Informative)
Everything cycles around.
This tech existed 10-15 years ago. There were "popular" options for IRIX, and common in CAVE setups.
I attended SIGGRAPH in 2000 or so on an exhibitor pass for a company that was producing a 3D window manager to do exactly this.
Re:What's old is new again (Score:5, Insightful)
But in theory each time it cycles its less expensive, more advanced, and more available.
Re:What's old is new again (Score:5, Funny)
What's this? A lack of cynicism in a post?
Crucify him! Crucify him!
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It happens. Not often these days it seems, but it happens.
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But in theory each time it cycles its less expensive, more advanced, and more available.
And just as useless.
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I will hold of judgement until i see the real thing. However, even if it is useless this cycle, every time something comes "back around" it gets more and more useful as it is refined. Plus all the collateral improvements in other related technology that happens is nothing to discount either.
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That is what is said about a lot of technology in the beginning. Time and time again, that defeatist attitude is proven wrong, and those people who are short sighted, are just that and there is not basis on reality.
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even if perfectly implemented this idea still doesn't provide anything useful
Again, i have heard that time and time again, from people with limited minds that cant see outside their own little box. If people like you had their way, we would still be living in caves "i dont see any need to go outside, its just fine in this here cave"
Idiot.
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Again, i have heard that time and time again, from people with limited minds that cant see outside their own little box.
Wrong, this whole concept and usable implementations have been around for decades and people don't use them because they aren't useful, not because there is anything wrong with the implementation just that some people can't understand that the square peg doesn't fill the round hole no matter how many times you re-implement the same square peg.
If people like you had their way, we would still be living in caves "i dont see any need to go outside, its just fine in this here cave"
I'm perfectly open to new ideas and innovation, but this isn't new or innovative, this is just flogging the dead horse.
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Exactly my point, if one of these UI "innovations" was actually useful it would have had some measure of adoption by now.
The absolute zero adoption of this concept in the 20+ years it's been around proves how pointless it is.
Apple patent (Score:2, Informative)
I think Apple was granted a patent on something similar to this recently (apple wins patents on 3d technology in desktop user interfaces).
http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-wins-patents-on-3d-technology-in-desktop-user-interfaces/
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And I think SGI might have prior art (I'd have to read Apple's patent to be sure).
nauseating (Score:3)
I was looking forward to using rift at work, but this looks like a guy is desperately trying to type in a "deploy parachute" command into the terminal while tumbling through the air at horrible speeds.
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/sarcasm: What, you don't like the constant reboot / remake / re-imaging / regurgitation of Hollywood recycling old movies? ;)
Warning: incoming game. (Score:2)
No, God damn it! (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a reason I don't have 13 desks in my office, and a reason I have a three-wide monitor configuration. I want to see everything at once, not have to sift or "wander" through some 3D space to find what I'm looking for.
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There's a reason I don't have 13 desks in my office, and a reason I have a three-wide monitor configuration. I want to see everything at once, not have to sift or "wander" through some 3D space to find what I'm looking for.
That is the interesting thing about the Rift. You can have 3 monitors side by side by side in virtual space. You could surround yourself in an entire sphere of giant monitor. You do not have to walk down the hallway to another virtual office to access another virtual monitor. Just because someone else likes it that way, that does not mean it has to be that way for you.
Needs a lot of work. (Score:2)
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Most of the jittering in the video is due to the head movements of the user and is not actually noticable to the person wearing the goggles. In fact, if the jittering weren't present it would probably be a very uncomfortable experience for most people.
It's kind of like when you're looking at a physical monitor: As your head moves around slightly, the position of the monitor's projection onto your retina would also jitter, but it doesn't feel like the monitor is moving because your brain subconciously compen
I know this! (Score:2)
It's UNIX!
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Did Jurrassic Park come out so long ago that nobody gets the reference anymore?
I'm old! ;_;
Virtual machines (Score:2)
dumbass (Score:1)
Interesting (Score:2)
But if I had a headset strapped on, I'd rather be in an immersive world like OpenCroquet/Cobalt/Qwak[1] (which support VNC for accessing "legacy" applications) than a white space surrounded by floating rectangles.
[1] https://code.google.com/p/open... [google.com] https://virtual.wf/ [virtual.wf] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]