Spere XP - 3D OS for PCs!

[cb911]

well i just came accross this: http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/. it's a project called Sphere XP, and well, it's XP, but turned into a sphere! you can download it as well... i think i'm going to try this on my PC. there's videos at the site it looks pretty cool.

so far the only thing we've got on Macs that even comes remotely close to this is 3DOSX, which is really only horizontal. you can't look up or anything like that.

from watching the vides of Sphere XP it looks really good, like you actually feel like it is 3D.

but i just know that 10.4 is going to blow any of this stuff out of the water.

 

[jtown]

I tried it and all I can say is, "Meh."

It's very jerky on my XP2600+ machine with a 4x Radeon 8500. Even after being "attached to the sphere", my last active window flashes to the front as I scroll around the sphere. The 3D controls didn't seem to work well at all (I couldn't move windows around in 3D space. They were either in the foreground or moved back a fixed distance. Video doesn't play unless the player is in the foreground. It totally hosed the layout of my desktop icons.

I could go on but it's really not even ready for testing. Nice idea but it needs a lot of work.

 

[iindigo]

heh, anybody wanna bet a half-good Cocoa programmer (or Apple) could code something similar make this look like crap?

 

[edesignuk]

I have to say, that even just from the screenies, this looks awful. WinExpose was complete trash, I can't imagine this being any better

 

[crenz]

Looks like a lot of programming work. It probably would be a lot easier to do it on Mac OS X (and faster also, since the capabilities are built into the OS).

The really difficult part about creating a 3d UI is to create a UI that actually makes sense and is easy to use. So far, nobody seems to have been able to come up with something compelling.

That said, I'd love to be able to have a desktop that is, say, 4 times the width of my screen and just wiggle it around using the mouse . Might be even better than virtual desktops.

 

[jtown]

Well, that's kind of what this is except the desktop is curved and 3D so you can "see" more of it without having to "wiggle it around" as much to find windows. And it gives you more "wiggle room" to "put" things.

If you've ever used VR, it's a lot like that except you don't have the doohickey over your headpiece sensing the tilt of your head as you look around. That's simulated by using the mouse to "drag" the desktop around until the part you want to look at is visible. Same idea but, instead of moving your head, you move the environment.

 

[markjones05]

I dont care if this first version is buggy or not i think this is a brilliant idea and should be adopted by someone who knows what they are doing. After looking at that 3d screen and seeing how much desktop space is possible to have and then i look back at my 2d flat desktop i feel suddenly imprisoned by borders. I dont see why apple couldnt make os10.4 like this with minimul effort. Fast user switching is kinda like having 2 desktops already, intergrate it with expose and who knows. It should be easy enough to controll with a 2 button mouse and a scroll wheel to zoom windows into the foward and background. Click the desktop and drag to move it around... possibilities are endless.

 

[Versello]

This has been done before... except it was inside a cube rather than a sphere.

Anyways, I think I'll stick with my 2d desktop.

 

[mkrishnan]

This has been done before... except it was inside a cube rather than a sphere.

Anyways, I think I'll stick with my 2d desktop.

Is it just me, or would this (the sphere) be really cool with VR goggles? It seems kinda silly to me on a flat panel screen though. Also it would be better if you had a lot of extra resolution so that the off-center screens could be read. And if the context followed your eye movements. And if you could learn Kung Fu by chipping it into your brain. And if there was a cool guy with Pince-Nez sunglasses following you around spouting pseudophilosophy and offering you red pills and blue pills.

Oh, I forgot what I was talking about now.

 

[Abstract]

I think its a great idea, and agree that it would probably be much easier to do in OSX. I'm not a programmer at all, but thats the impression I get since OSX has much better graphics capabilities as an OS than Windows does. Ever hold Shift while using Expose or Minimize? Apple can do anything they want in OSX. Windows seems a bit limited.

 

[haiggy]

I think its a great idea, and agree that it would probably be much easier to do in OSX. I'm not a programmer at all, but thats the impression I get since OSX has much better graphics capabilities as an OS than Windows does. Ever hold Shift while using Expose or Minimize? Apple can do anything they want in OSX. Windows seems a bit limited.

Heh, didn't know you could do that with Exposé, but I did know about the minimize thing... but with Exposé you have to use the hotkeys, you cant use hot corners... anyways... I think the cube effect looks pretty cool and its true, you do feel boxed in on a 2D desktop. I think Apple could do a great job of making one and everyone would love it. I wonder would the cube effect would look like on two displays?

 

[kanker]

but with Exposé you have to use the hotkeys, you cant use hot corners

Go to System Pref's Expose panel. Hot corners aplenty, and you can reassign the hot keys.

 

[cb911]

I'D really like to see something like this for OS X. no, actually i'd love to see this in OS X!

so is anyone up to the task? i think the 3D OS X people have stopped working on that, and it was just kind of a hobby i think anyway.

i've got kind of an idea of how to get the mouse to move things. kind of like in After Effects when you've got 3D layers. that seems to work okay, but anything different than moving your mouse vertically and horizontally will seem different to people.

or wel can just wait for Apple to bring out 10.4 with it's 3D stuff.