As a person who writes 3d graphics algorithms, I really can't agree
with your statement that "far more info may be coded" in 3d. I think
you overestimate how much resolution a computer screen really has.
Seeing things from far away and projecting things at angles loses a
lot of information. You gain more info about a given object's 3d
shape, but you lose info about what's on its 2d surfaces, and you
still can't see objects that are occluded by other objects. Believe
it or not, the best informational representation of what's on a piece
of paper, is a 2d projection. :-)
Have you ever seen a 3d visualization of an OS's file system? You
really can't see everything all at once - all the text on the
"background" objects is illegible. You may learn something about the
overall structure of the system, but you don't get any "more" info on
any of the objects in particular. And for a lot of objects in a given
scene, your 3d viewpoint doesn't make them any easier to find.
VR makes up for these informational deficiencies by allowing you to
move around in the environment. That takes _time_. Time is what
consumers don't have a lot of. Since VR can't provide the fidelity of
real-life objects, what's the justification for spending a lot of time
wandering around in a VR world to shop? You might as well look at a
2d photograph, or several 2d photographs taken from different views.
The fidelity is way better than what VR has to offer, and is more
likely to affect your buying decision.
Take for instance shopping for books or CD's. At least I got into a shop
without any clear thought of what to buy, instead I'm looking for something
to catch my interest, be it through a familiar title, interesting cover, or
whatever. Think of what a VR system could do for that kind of information
immersion, walking or flying through the acid-jazz recordings
But is this information access, or marketing flash?
or the sci-fi of the last twenty years.
That would take a lot of _time_ to go through. Why wouldn't someone
just consult an index of movie titles, and then get a videotape? It's
much more direct. To get to the history, you have to watch the
videotapes anyways.
I know this borders to commersialism, but then again I think we have a lot
to add to more utilitybased VR systems as well as the artistic ones.
"Commercialism" is the root of the matter. The real reason people
want to use VR to sell things, is not because it's a more efficient
access method. It isn't - it's decidedly less efficient than most
consumption mechanisms invented to date. It's because they think they
can make VR presentations that are so flashy that you'll want to buy
stuff and spend all your time in VR worlds because it's all just so
neat.
Thus the sale of goods in Cyberspace is going to have nothing to do
with the technology of VR, and everything to do with the artistry of
VR.
How many years will it take before commercial VR art can hope to compete with
its more traditional counterparts?
Claiming that 2d information access is fundamentally better than 3d, just
because there are no proper 3d systems developed yet would be like saying
2d GUI is a bad idea back in 1980 :-)
It is important to recognize what tasks an interface is good at, and
what it is not.
Cheers,
Brandon