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OMG 3d GUI WTF!
Ever since William Gibson wrote his epic book Neuromancer back in 1984 there has been a notion that 3d graphics will be the eventual evolution of the GUI interface. When I was in Jr High I read the book The Art of Human Computer Interface Design and it seeded a fascination with GUI design. I was the only kid in Jr High who knew who Vannevar Bush and Douglas Englebert was.
How many of you remember the word Cyberspace? How about Virtual Reality? Wow I am having an early 90s flash back. How about TRON?
Back in the early 80s we (as in hard core nerds) thought that head mounted virtual reality displays and hand tracking "Power Gloves" were going to be the ultimate human-computer interface until we figured out how to put a high speed data port in the back of your head. Head mounted VR never really caught on and most people would prefer a really kick ass high resolution flat panel display to something that they would have to strap to their head. I wonder if there are any happy owners of a Nintendo Virtual Boy reading this?
I remember in the early 90s when Apple's alternative to Open GL was announced called QuickDraw 3d. Since Apple QuickDraw was the basis of all 2d-graphics on the Mac there was a rumor that Apple was developing a 3d interface and that we would have flying virtual cyber mice to interact with a VR interface just to open a Word processor and check email.( This was before the web.)
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I found a link to a research project that Sun was working on. They were working on a special 3D GUI demo called "Looking Glass" to a Unix Operating System of theirs but it used 3d graphics to move and manipulate the windows in a dynamic manor. This is pretty slick but it could have just been a cool tech demo with little real world application.
Apple has a very slick hardware acceleration enabled graphic interface for their Mac OS X called Quartz and I love the idea of the dynamic application thumbnailing application called Expose. This lets a user shrink down windows and programs like they were virtual sticky notes. This may not be the most essential application but if it enhances the user experience significantly then it is worthwhile.
Microsoft is working on a new 3d-graphics system for Windows Longhorn called Aero. This will let Windows take advantage of 3d hardware acceleration and will allow 3d objects and animation to be program interface elements as well as allowing 3d graphics to be used as easily as normal Windows 2d graphics.
I work as a 3d animator and I spend lots of time with 3d animation programs such as 3ds MAX so I am down with the polygons.
The real question is will a 3d based GUI interface be usable and will less powerful machines be able to take advantage of it? I don't want to sound a bit to much like Jakob Nielson but will a 3d GUI interface really help people use computers?
3d graphics take up much more CPU resources and they can take up much more memory than a traditional 2d GUI interface. Take a look at the difference between the memory card icons on the PSOne and the Playstation2. The PSOne has a save file represented by a small barely animated 2d icon that take up very little space on the memory card and uses the rest of the space for saved game data. The PS2 memory card icons are 3d Icons, some featuring animations and textures that are only shown when you are going to delete or copy the file. While the saved game data is probably a small item the animations to the 3d icon can take up a half a meg or so. I like the little 3d guy icons as much as the next Playstation2 nerd but you could fit ten times the amount of game data if they had some restraint in file size of the 3d icons.
One of the problems of the 2d GUI concept is that it is just to popular and it has been ingrained in our public consciousness for too long to be open to radical change. People are so used to the mouse, icon and windows concept that different 3d GUI concepts may not go over. There might be a bit of a user backlash to 3d GUI elements but at the same time I can think of some very cool possibilities.
How about a digital music player that looked like an old record player and you could sort through your virtual LPs and cartoon 3d notes game out of the speakers and danced in the air to the beat? That would be cool.
It is way to early to see what a mainstream 3d GUI to a personal computer will even look like but the developments are fascinating and the next couple years will be bountiful as we see start to see practical uses of 3d GUI designs.
Jake at April 12, 2004 
Nerd
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Comments
You know how you can buy that P5 virtual reality glove off eBay for like $30 bucks now? Somebody should make a kick-ass interface like in the style of "Minority Report" That would rule so hard.
Posted by: Jay at April 12, 2004 8:11 AM
"I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." - Lucas, The Wizard.
Yes, I own that movie.
Posted by: Matt at April 12, 2004 8:55 PM
Very interesting. Nice post, Jake. :)
Posted by: Jonathan Bennett at April 12, 2004 9:39 PM
I remember at a CES quite a few years back when BMW had a mockup of a dealer information program in a VR environment. Everything was represented on cubes, it was kinda like a really low resolution slow version of the VR sequence in Johnny Mnemonic. I'm just curious if anyone ever works out a 3D NES emulator and you'll go to pop in a 3D representation of a rom dump as a cartridge, and randomly you'll get the flashing screen.
Posted by: InsaneDavid at April 12, 2004 10:27 PM
I don't think the 3D icons take up the space, Jake. Tekken Tag Tournament's save data is less than 100k and has a nice animated icon. 3D models kan take up less space than bitmaps.
Posted by: Berklee at April 13, 2004 1:18 AM
All the Tekken Tag data should be a list of highscores and what fighters and endings you have unlocked. That can be a much smaller file than 100k if it did not have the cute 3d icon of the girl with pig tails.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 13, 2004 9:37 AM
