From: Daniel Green Subject: Re: APPS: VR as Programming Aid Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 04:19:06 -0700 Message-ID: <3216FC2A.1C7@slip.net> Organization: GreenWare Marc Bernatchez wrote: > [...] > The video card, while it don't need to be 3D, will cry for a lot of > memory... Think of what it would need to hold let's say a 9000x1000 > pixels plane. The refresh rate will also have to be quite high to scan > such a bunch of pixels. You could just use a 1024x780 capable video > card but then, you would need to calculate and scroll pixels in > realtime... here comes the lag factor again. > > I guess you'll have to be patient and wait for the technology to catch > up our fertile imaginative minds ;-) Perhaps you needn't wait at all if you rephrase the problem not as how one can display a 360 degree virtual screen, but as how not to get lost among lots of spatially arranged documents. I.e. a larger virtual desktop. Notice too that one disadvantage of an immersive data environment could require you to move you head and body quite a bit which might become just as bothersome as the page flipping that you were trying to avoid in the first place. What I'd suggest would be a 2D desktop but displaying a non-linear space so that the current page(s) you want to eximine is displayed in the center of the screen and takes up most of the real-estate, but all the other documents are still visible but scaled down the further they are from the center document. You could click on any page and drag it into the center where it gets magnified, and you'll still where the other pages go to as they shrink into the distance. Such a system was demonstrated I believe at last year's SIGGRAPH perhaps on a panel on visualizing the internet but could be easily adapted to this problem and should require nothing more high-tech than an existing fast CPU. -- Daniel Green danielgr@slip.net GreenWare 415-673-5965 2340 Francisco St. #301 San Francisco, CA 94123