> i see the point of 3d when doing tools for visualizing representation > of things that should be moved live like a car model, or a building > plant or quake. May be he is speaking about this? something like > opengl or directx :-?
Consider for example google earth or a CAD program -- if you ever played with revit you'd realize just how clunky Autocad is. Consider 3d video games. Consider something like a flight simulator -- all the one I played with were very clunky to interact with. Can we do something to make it easy to visualize complex information in a virtual 3d space and navigate around it or modify it? Can there be an interface for a sculptor to model something he wishes to build? Why must such things be separate "applications"? Why can't we just treat each "window" as a piece of paper and shuffle it around, bend a corner, crumple it up, stretch it out, do some origami with? Take my question in whichever direction you want. Some times misunderstanding leads to invention! > > What's more usable about 3d than 2d for a GUI desktop? Turn your question around. If you had a 3d UI what useful (or playful) things can you do that you can't do today? If you come up with something you'd want to do, what else can be added/changed/removed to make the UI simpler and more useful? > > I use Acme on Mac OS X as my main editor for most things these days > > actually. The only things I really miss are when I'm editing scheme or lis > p > > and need to match up all those damned parenthesis. In those cases I use > > Emacs... it's just better at it (and no stopping to click to highlight > > open/close parens doesn't do it for me as much as automatic code indentatio > n > > based on syntax gets me) Do you write any haskell/python in acme? If the editor showed each s-expr at a different height & color and if you could look at your program from a 45 angle, you'd see what's what :-)
