:: From: alexs@servicom.es (Alexandre Soler M,BCN)
:: Organization: SERVICOM
:: Subject: cyberespace mirror-city
:: To: vworlds-list@netcom.com
::
:: First, please excuse my English
Excused. I've seen worse :)
:: I'd like to get your opinion on how a cyberespace city on the Web should be.
:: Taking some ideas from M. Pesce's article "cyberespace", I've arrived to some
:: thoughts that would like to share with you:
::
:: 1. I use the term "cyberespace mirror-city" to talk about a virtual
:: representation of all the Internet resources refered to a geografic zone (a
:: city or a region). This should not be, of course, the only kind of
:: cyberespace city, since much of the information you find in the Web is not
:: relative to a specific geografical zone, but to content. But the one I'm now
:: talking here is that mirror-concept, where places or resources in real wolrd
:: have their own representation in cyberespace.
::
The problem I see with this is, how close to reality would you want the
mirror to be and what are your goals in doing so?
:: 2. I agree that this representation should not be a copy of the phisical
:: dimensions and shapes of the real world, but an entire new concept, (probably
:: with links to/from a map of the phisical city).
::
:: 3. The internet resources could be represented by some sort of buildings.
:: Those biuldings should be distributed in zones organized by content.
:: Different streets would sorround and cross zones, giving to the navigation a
:: real-live look to make orientation easier. The main diference should be the
:: possibility to fly, and also easily see the entire city from above, so the
:: different zones can be easily recognized and choosed.
::
Would this mirror-city have such valid information that, if one went to the
actual city in the real world, one could benefit from the knowledge gained
in a prior visit to the mirror-city? Would your knowledge of getting around
the mirror-city have any use in the real-world city? If you set up a new
environment, you may lose entirely any connection to the real-world city.
:: 4. The size of those buildings should be relative to the amount of
:: information they contain. If size is left free to de decision of the building
:: "owner", every building would be twice as bigger than the previous one
:: inserted in the city, and the city would grow with no sense.
::
^
Good idea.
:: 5. The "adresses" or phisical coordinates on the 3D model of the virtual city
:: should be fixed, so anyone could find a resource by remembering where it was
:: phisically located into cyberespace. If coordinates of a resource change
:: often, navigation will be confusing and quite dificult. On the other hand,
I think the key here is that you need a unique "index" to the mirror-city
that all things are organized around. To take a real-world analogy, you
could start with a "property map" where parcels of land are "owned" by
certain files. In other words, somehow have a property_index.vrml file
which everything is organized around.
:: fixed coordinates do not allow continuous reorganization of the city to allow
:: an efficient content oriented search, so the city can finally grow -like a
:: real city- in a quite anarchic way. That would make those searchs inefficient
:: if you want to try a Yahoo-kind search with the suposed advantages of 3D
:: visualization. Don't really know the best solution.
::
:: Alexandre Soler M.
:: alexs@servicom.es
:: Barcelona, Spain
::
:: BTW Anyone who could tell me what happened to the VRML list?
::
A little info on vrml-digest...
www-vrml-digest Wednesday, 28 June 1995 Volume 01 : Number 026
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_______________________________________________________________________________
Robert K. Foster (rkf@rad.msu.edu)
Analyst / Designer / Programmer
Mid-Michigan MRI, Inc.
Lansing, MI, USA