3D Navigation
5 Jan 2009 - 5:39pm
11 replies
738 reads
Jennifer Hoppenrath
2006
Hi All,
I'm looking for examples of 3D navigation where a user can move free form within visual objects or data, particularly in the area of search or within a use case of finding specific information. (I think this is a poor interface for this type of scenario btw, looking to talk a client out of it.) Two I can think of are PicLens and Google Earth. Have any of you come across or designed such an interface lately?
Thanks,
Jennifer
Jennifer Hoppenrath I Razorfish Senior Information Architect Office +1 (206) 816-8497 Mobile
+1 (206) 724-3077 Jennifer.Hoppenrath at razorfish.com
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Here's one: http://labs.blitzagency.com/?p=68
I am likewise leery of this kind of navigation unless it's extremely well
done. The web is 3D enough in its very nature -- there's no need to pull
that out visually (at least, not any more than usual) unless it's
compellingly relevant to the content and audience.
bests,
Alex O'Neal
UX manager
--
The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The next best time is
now.
You wrote:
>
>
> "I'm looking for examples of 3D navigation where a user can move free form
> within visual objects or data"
I assume that you have seen Muriel Cooper's work at MIT... there is a
section about it in Wurman's 'Information Architecture' book.
Mark
On Jan 5, 2009, at 5:39 PM, Jennifer Hoppenrath wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'm looking for examples of 3D navigation where a user can move
> free form within visual objects or data, particularly in the area
> of search or within a use case of finding specific information. (I
> think this is a poor interface for this type of scenario btw,
> looking to talk a client out of it.) Two I can think of are
> PicLens and Google Earth. Have any of you come across or designed
> such an interface lately?
>
> Thanks,
> Jennifer
>
> Jennifer Hoppenrath I Razorfish Senior Information Architect
> Office +1 (206) 816-8497 Mobile
> +1 (206) 724-3077 Jennifer.Hoppenrath at razorfish.com
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
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Something like this maybe?
http://whitevoid.com/application.html
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http://www.dillerscofidio.com/
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The only usage of it I have seen recently is within student projects
where they have tended to use the available open-source code and
produce something rather rarefied in its real-world application.
I agree, it's not a very user-friendly way of navigating data, or
even photographs. It creates an illusion of empathy with the user,
but in fact relies heavily on input.
Meta-data once entered into any data-repository can be manipulated in
any way.
That said, I am an absolute fan of visual thesaurus and the Flock
browser.
Thomas
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Hi Jennifer,
How about the Aurora project from the good people over at Adaptive
path?
http://adaptivepath.com/aurora/
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You might find some good and bad examples of users moving within
simulated 3D objects in the realm of sophisticated gaming software;
specifically 'search for objects', 'solve puzzles' type games.
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Hopefully you can talk the client out of it. The easiest 3D interfaces
always involve a 2D manipulation within the context of a 3D view so I
always wonder if it would have been better to simply to provide a 2D
view anyway.
IMO, the 3D Super Mario games have the best UI for navigating along a
surface in 3D but it requires simultaneous manipulation of two
joysticks - one for locomotion and one for looking around. The Google
Lively interface tried to provide the next best thing that you could
do on a desktop with just your mouse - here's an interactive mockup
of the interaction: http://www.vizmo.com/design/dragNav3d.html
Move your viewpoint by dragging and releasing the avatar. Look around
or zoom by dragging elsewhere. Continuous scrolling is handier - the
camera starts moving as soon as you move the avatar far enough as in
this demo: http://www.vizmo.com/design/chessGizmo03.html
For content thats not so ecological you could do this without an
avatar by simply dragging ground or wall-like surfaces, but then you
lose the rotation handle. This is a bit more like Cool Iris.
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I believe 3D UI paradigms have developed a poor reputation (and for
the most part justly so), but there is a lot of potential in its use.
The key benefit of 3D when it comes to a search is that is can
provide a quick overview of a lot of data, and allow the user to
change perspective (and somewhat the modalitiy) from overview and
browsing to a detailed view within a seamless space.
In Johnny Lee's head tracking demo, you can see the potential for
creating natural spatial paradigms for browsing objects/collections.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw
In the appendix of this document there is an okay collection of 3D &
2.5D UIs:
http://www.tat.se/site/media/downloads/3D Interfaces for Mobile
Phones_public_20080529.pdf
Some included are:
BumpTop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ODskdEPnQ
PicLens Cool Iris http://www.cooliris.com/
RSS Voyage http://www.rssvoyage.com
The document also includes a framework for analyzing 3D UIs, breaking
the benefits into Visual Style & Feedback, Naturalized Interaction,
and Flexible Information Visualization
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Piclens is renamed to Cooliris
try: www.cooliris.com
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I always got a chuckle out of this scene in Jurassic Park:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4tbis_jurassic-park-unix-system-scene_tech
"This is UNIX. I know this!" Nothing like navigating a super slow
3d UI instead of executing a few commands via a terminal when there
are raptors after you. Maybe that clip will help convince your client
;)
Regardless, here is a page full of 3d UIs:
http://nooface.net/3dui.shtml
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