Congratulations Kevin. Is any of this available on-line?
>Anyways, I was talking to some people at lunch the other day. We were
>trying to figure out the proper domains for 3D vs 2D. I think that there
>certainly could be such a thing as 2D VR (if myst was faster it might
>approximate it better). So we were anylizing all the things people are
>trying to shove into 3D graphics that aren't appropriate (on-line catalog
>for instance) and trying to come up with ways we could take the things
>that were traditionally 2D and transform them with 3D (as opposed to
>translating them).
>
>any ideas?
>
> Kevin
Here an excerpt taken from one of the texts I wrote in connection with my
thesis. The whole thing is in html from the url in my .sig. Look under
thesis, texts:Mediatransitions.
What should be moved to 3d?
A natural question to ask is what benefits from being designed in 3d? What
is there that can't as easily and clearly be presented in html pages? It's
a tough question. It's difficult judging the use of any medium before it's
been in use for a while. Different applications will arise, many of which
no-one thought of in the first place. In the same way few at CERN
anticipated the explosive growth of homepages when they developed html.
The most obvious uses are presentation of 3d form, like architectural
models, industrial designs, molecules, etc. which can only can be fully
understood and appreciated in 3d. Many of these already exists as models
and 2d renderings of them are published on the net today. To convert them
in to vrml and create a link to the model instead of the picture should be
straightforward.
What should emerge in 3d?
My guess is that 3d representations of complex data structures will be the
next to emerge. 3d yields opportunities for mapping of much more complex
information than 2d does. For instance, models of weather systems could be
generated as vrml-worlds for people to navigate, so that the full three
dimensional reality of it could be experienced, not just it's plan
projection.
Also, there will be homeworlds, similar to today's homepages. Usually
without much content (e.g. 'click here to look at my record collection '),
but works that experiments with the format and technological possibilities.
Companies will also create virtual corporate headquarters mainly to show
off technological prowess, but it might be that some of them develop into
usable tools for information browsing, shopping etc.
What should remain 2d?
Until we find a clever and comfortable way of incorporating lengths of text
into 3d worlds, it's best kept in it's familiar 2d environment. Our
conventions for reading text is based it being printed or displayed on a 2d
surface, in neat lines. Shifting to other parts of the text, which can be
achieved with a link or scrolling in html, you'd have to move around. This
would be tedious. It's far easier to make an object-link to a html document
containing the text. In 3d worlds it's probably best to refrain from using
more than short passages of text. Personally I find it a nuisance to read
2d text on-screen as well. Give me a proper paper copy any day. But as
screens improve it might be feasible to read even books on-screen.
Other types of information best suited for 2d presentation would be simple
diagrams and pictures. 2d has the advantage that the complete contents is
available from one view-point. You don't have to walk about, looking behind
objects to find something, it's right there in front of you. If speed and
readability is the key issue, 2d abstractions serves you best.
(It's not all that high-flying in terms of ideas for usage, I tried to keep
it within a reasonable time frame (technologically) and limited to what I
suspect will be common uses)
-----------------------------------------
Torbjoern Caspersen casper@due.unit.no
http://www.stud.unit.no/~casper/
Student of Architecture
at the Norwegian faculty of technology, NTH, Trondheim.