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...If I may offer an additional viewpoint to the following comments;
James Landrum wrote:
>To display a 3D model of an object out of context,
> without also providing the associated data (the contextual information),
> i.e., simply displaying a pretty picture, is a disservice, at least in
> the academic arena.
:
:
>You can't simply have 3D models or virtual worlds without providing a means
>for
>explaining the context...
Yes, switching contexts frequently in some unstable abstract space is the
problem with all filesystems to date.
I think the transition to 3d views, and then to 3d immersive environments
connected to large and diverse datasets, is probably best approached
gradually through a 'fractal' dimension. By that, I mean a mixed content
model that starts in the flat 2d space we work in now, online, and combines
'snapshots' of 3d space collapsed into 2d as a background. At the user's
discretion, unfreezing the 'two and a half D' image allows navigation in a
VR database in 3d. But the choice should always there in the background,
embedded implicitly in the presentation, instead of saying to the user "you
must now formally leave your flat world and enter a new unfamiliar space.
But first wait until your browser goes through all kinds of backflips and
contortions to download this plugin.."
Browsing information on a 2d hyperlinked platform will always be an
efficient way to gather facts, but that model breaks down when you want to
do more than just gather facts in a basket. VR systems linked to XML, and
especially powered by engines (like XSLT) that exists outside of any black
box confinement, could eventually be structured to provide a global fixed
context the researcher can anchor to, reliably. The fixed context is the
key if you want to build ideas, not just gather facts. When XML elements are
seen as having the same logical environ as the physical elements they mimic,
then the fixed context will be there. After all, the element Hydrogen in a
water molecule in a three-toed sloth in the Amazon is the same element
Hydrogen in Joe FooBars body in Boise, Idaho. Just the namespace is
different. Wildly different instances, but they share the same global
context. And you can count on finding the same water molecule, with the same
predictable behavior, on the surface of Venus.
I've tried to provide a small elaboration of these brief thoughts online by
creating
the following pipeline;
.xsd .xsl
+ |=> WorldWinsGIS
XML,X3D,GML => JAXB |=> Java3D, SMIL, SVG, XHTML in an Apache Cocoon XML
publishing
framework.
For performance, all the navigable data objects are presented to the
involved user via a Java Web Start one-time download of the Java3D/SVG
viewer. In that way XML updates only, need to be streamed. Casual users stay
with the conventional browser and see only SVG 3d effects. The final goal is
to make the machine invisible, transparent. For now it is necessary to jump
a lot of browser incompatability hurdles before that goal can be achieved.
Right now there is a lot of formal 'donning of spacesuits and saying
goodbye to loved ones'
as you move from one medium to another, especially in 3d apps.
An XML pipeline makes it possible to
move seamlessly through data in a way invisible to the end user. The medium
should be the message, to paraphrase McLuhan, not: _A_ Medium is _A_
Message.
Up to now, VR and most video games tend to make people (me, anyways)
slightly ill after a while, because of the garish colors and unbelievability
of the scene. Like walking into a kids nursery with a hangover and spending
time with all
the bright neon plastic toys (how do kids do it?). So for me the key to
_wanting_ to use VR for modelling data was to set myself a high standard for
the renders, to make them as organic as possible. But, as was mentioned
earlier in this post, the developement curve for creating believability is
extremely steep. I had to create an entire solar system before I could
'believe' the moonlit scene in my DEM. and feel comfortable in it. And I had
to 'pad' the VR with 2d, overlay the VR with 2d, embed the VR in little
'3dlets' sprinkled throughout the 2d and generally make the transition
between _any_ idiom seamless, whether VR or SMIL or SVG or what have you.
That's my goal anyways.
When I find a web host that supports Cocoon better than my present host,
I'll post the stable URL. For now, anyone who wants to, can see an example
of what I mean by 'fractal' presentation by going to this temporary link
(this is only a test shell and will be gone in a day or two). Follow the
links to the SVG stills of the fully navigable VR they stand in for.;
http://worldwins.canadawired.com/subjects/earthdesign.html
Peter Kryszkiewicz
Vertex Geosystems
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