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This is not a "how to" because i know i am far from being able to program stuff like that.

I was wandering if anyone knows of any attemps to make a usefull 3D GUI. I have checked out sf.net and goggled a bit, but havent found anything.

I ask only of generel interest.

Regards

AFAIK its all futurism. I planned on trying that for being something completely different, but my kernel's progress isn't even close enough to start implementing such a thing.

Project Looking Glass?

Thats a 3d-card enhanced desktop. Those have become rather common already (Vista, Beryl). But its essentially still a 2D environment rather than a 3D one.

Combuster wrote:Those have become rather common already (Vista, Beryl).

*COUGH*

I don't own a mac, sorry

Leopard does look quite interesting, although I am sure nothing spectacular but I still like the new look.

The automator is nothing new, but I have never seen a advanced 'looking' package like that. I am sure someone here knows of one. It might be that I have never had much use for one. I do remember recorder in Windows 3.1, though. That recorder made my dad quite upset when somehow I made it start deleting files.. I was a little young and thought the computer has become possessed, lol.

Well..with a bit of conversation with a friend..

I think it'd be really amazing if we could get rather than rendering to a 2-D surface, be able to render to a 3-D surface...
I really think it'd be amazing if something like the Matrix type thign was done...to where you think you see something, but you don't...
and then if you could somehow move around in this virtual world(even though you actually are sitting still, like in a dream) then that'd be really amazing! Bad thing about moving, would be if the computer froze up and you weren't able to press the "Escape" button to get control back to your body..then you'd just be stuck looking at a blue world(lol)

Combuster wrote:I don't own a mac, sorry

Just pointing out who got there first.

3d desktops are a waste of time. To be honest, I have yet to see any added functionality, if anything, a loss of functionality from 3d desktops. I'll stick with ratpoison

imo, 3-d desktops are useless on 2-d surfaces...but like I said, if there was a 3-d display today, it'd be very useful....

edit:
to use a 3-d surface properly, you'd have to have a 3-d pointing device though too...

@hckr83, I still don't understand what you mean by a "3-d display".

Are you talking about some sort of Holography? like a desktop generated with real 3D objects? like you could walk around your desk and manipulate your "virtual desktop" from any view point?

I don't see any other viable method of an "actual" 3D display..

Anyway, The matrix style of "Virtual Reality" would be a nice "real" 3D environment

Who wants to design such an interface, I'll donate my brain for experimental research any day.

i was thinking something like a first person shooter or simular, could be kinda cool with a boundryless univers for you deskop with small planets as icons and stuff. however i fail to see how it can be very usefull, and that is the subject that really interests me.

I would think if you have a truly 3D system, you could create an environment that would be extremely fast to use. That is, not fast as in processor speed, but as in usage. For example, in GNOME, I have to move my mouse to the start button, click it, find what I'm looking for, etc. If you had a 3D environment, and you were the input device, you could create actions on the computer as fast as you could move or think. (Depending on if you went on a direct brain hookup, or touch-like system.)

Also, there wouldn't be windows that overlapped. They would be stored in some virtual space that could be flipped and toppled and shoved depending on what you wanted. I think storing them like paper would be effective. Reaching into a virtual pile of windows and picking up whatever one you were looking for.

That's what I'd be looking for. Extreme speed.

It would be nice to make a "virtual reality PC" that, well, turns the human brain into really unreal mode (:D) - he can drag windows, menu bars, etc. with his own hands. Something like Matrix.

But what will you do if you are something doing in that "virtual reality" and suddenly, a big blue BSOD will pop up right in front of your eyes - no, that is not the "unreal mode" of human brain, that is pure nightmare

inflater