Re: 3d today instead of when MS wants to go...

[Craig Goodrich <craig airnet net>]

paraphrasing --
>> What the world needs is a good 3D interface....

One major problem with this is that all our serious apps,
with the exception of some kinds of CAD and graphics, are
hopelessly 2d, for a very simple reason.  Paper is 2D, and
business has been based on paper for thousands of years.

Even the Phoenecian's thick clay tablets were 2D in fundamental
concept.  Friezes were used more frequently, historically,
to convey information than were statues.

Our cameras are 2D, with a few specialized exceptions.
(I too had a ViewMaster as a kid and loved it, but that's
about the extent of 3D photography -- still.)  Books are
2D.  Paintings are 2D.  Sculpture is 3D and suffers from
a guano problem.

What would a 3D interface do?  Move around a corner into
this room and find XEmacs editing ioport.c as one side
wall, with kernel.h on the opposite wall?  (Maybe with
Linus in a suit of armor standing in the corner....)

The hyperlink structure of the Web makes documents logically
n-dimensional, I suppose, but it's hard to see how some 3D
interface would present this in a way that's any more intuitive
than the current 2D conventions.

In our civilization, we deal with paper 2D representations
of reality from before the age of 3.  I'm not sure what 
increase in usability or intuitiveness would result from
changing this paradigm.

I must be getting old.  I obviously don't understand the
concept.....

Craig Goodrich
Rural Village Systems
somewhere in the woods near Huntsville, Alabama