You've seen 'm in the movies..
You love them..

The 3D desktop enviroment..
There is nothing there now.. but someday..

It's funny how the linux/unix systems are the only ones to focus on the (IMHO) most usefull application of a 3D GUI, the file browser.

How would it be if one were to combine some these projects and make them into one big cross platform system..
Idealy it would be a file manager / database manager / desktop (or wm?) replacement..
All 'normall' stuff should be possible, drag and drop to copy, move or ln etc..
I'd like to see a crossover between 3DOSX and tdfsb, with a hint of.. yeah you get the point..


Sparked by a post on Antionline by Irongeek's here about 3D gui's I started looking around and found some realy cool stuff..
After starting my investigation here I thought it'd be better to start some kind of project page on this..

In the movie Jurassic Park (the origional) there is a scene where the wizzkid girl is behind a nix box (SGI IRIX) and says: "It's a UNIX system! I know this!"
fsn (pronounced fusion or File System Navigator) can be found here: http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html
It only works on old irix versions and not much else..


Projects of interrest


Windows

http://www.3dtop.com/ This makes a real 3D enviroment out of your desktop.. just place the executable on there, double click and go play..
This used to be commercial, but is freeware since the 17th of January 2004.
Please also check out the great plugins they have, here and especialy nr. 5, the 3D-model-import-plug-in... Can also import 3DS files and more.. http://www.3dtop.com/ss.htm

http://rooms3d.com/ This seems to be more of a 3D wallpaper then a real GUI.. 14 day trial version downloadable.. but hey, 3Dtop is way cooler that ROOMS !!

http://www.dreamrender.com
This is just a 3D wallpaper system, seems to be a rather large community

http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/ A not to interresting (imho, ofcourse) way of storing you windows in the background in 3D (diagonal)..

http://www.2ce.com/ CubicEye is a 3D browser, I've downloaded the demo, but wasn't that impressed (after all them cool, cool linux apps and 3Dtop)

http://www.infinite-3d.com Cube is a panoramic desktop.. looks like lookinglass (see others) the alpha version does seem to work, but is slow as hell!

Microsoft is also seems to be trying something with 3D in the Avalon GUI API for Longhorn, although I did hear a lot of rumors of it being delayed or even not implemented at all..
http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/...eaturesm7-2.asp
http://longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com/...ws/basic3d.aspx
http://www.extremetech.com/article2...,1154262,00.asp
Previously microsoft released some video's of the Task Gallery. http://research.microsoft.com/ui/TaskGallery/index.htm
Another older microsoft idea is Data Mountain.. http://research.microsoft.com/adapt/datamountain/default.asp

Linux/Unix

http://fsv.sourceforge.net/ This is a realy cool looking file browser..

http://www.determinate.net/webdata/seg/tdfsb.html This one is realy, realy, realy, realy friggin' cool and makes full use of multimedia stuff (does need a couple of unusual libs, no binarys, so not for the faint hearted)!!
Opening folders might take a while (especialy folders filled with movies, a caching mechanism would be most usefull).

http://xcruiser.sourceforge.net/ This one is less 3D (no gl) but the idea is realy good.. The navigation sucks ass though..

There used to be a 3Dwm project, but it is dead afaik ( http://www.3dwm.org/ )

http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/ Is a 3D animated desktop swicher.

http://www.opencroquet.org/ Is supposed to become a full 3D os..

http://www.ggi-project.org/ General Graphics Interface had the first 3D desktop hacks I've ever seen..

http://www.fresco.org/ Fresco is a windowing system (wm) that uses the power of GGI, SDL, DirectFB or GLUT to deliver it's stuff.. Has some 3D possibilities..

http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/macwarriors/projects/3dosx/ 3DOSX is a MacOsX Filebrowser and Desktop replacement.. This one looks realy prommising..
The "Platters" and the way files are accessed..
Now to find a good Mac to test it on.. H'm gonna have to wait till I'm at a Mac user's house..


Other

https://lg3d.dev.java.net/ Sun's Project Looking glass, very alpha afaik, but great looking screenshots and video's http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/index.html
They also have a collection of links to projects that might be (more or less) of relevance: https://lg3d-core.dev.java.net/lg3d...chnologies.html

http://nooface.com/ has a lot of info on POST-PC interfaces.

http://www.3dui.org/ A site devoted to three-dimensional user interfaces (3D UIs) and their design, evaluation, and application.

http://unixscene.kameli.net/Not realy 3D gui stuff but some good info and loads of linux "scene" demo's, some with source.. Could be usefull.. More can be found at scene.org!

Project

tdfsb is used as a refference, atleast untill I've tried 3dosx..

The screenshots of 3dosx are realy inspireing, they show exactly what ranzbak and I were talking about in the pub.
Folders are represented as "plateaus" containing folders, I don't realy like the way they are interlinked and will propose some other ways of connecting one plateau with another.
xcruiser sucks ass on my box, but the animation on their page does show the rather nice symbolic link handeling..
tdfsb only does previews for gif, jpg and mpg. The handeling of txt files sucks imho, previews for txt, pdf, html etc.. should be handled the same way kde can..
In pointer mode (see below) drag and drop opperations should be handled in the same way as normal graphic file managers.


Swichables:

nav modes: crosshair and pointer.
crosshair: You fly around in a simple way, mouse and/or cursors are used to "look around", other key's are used for forward and backward motion, allong with the scrollwheel
pointer: You use the pointer like in any old app, the view follows the selected folder and follows the mouse pointer in a realy sloppy way, scrollwheel and keys controll the zoom and pan

autoaim: on / off

fullscreen: fullscreen / windowed

viewall: true / false (show .files)