Re: [xml-dev] 2007 Predictions - losing the PC

[david.lyon@preisshare.net]

Quoting Kurt Cagle <kurt.cagle@gmail.com>:

> 3D makes sophisticated 2D possible. Apple proves this daily - and most of
> the core changes occuring on the Linux and even MS side visually are due to
> the integration of 3D processes into the daily workflow. Sure, many of them
> are just "effects", but its remarkable how effective those effects can be
> for making metaphors believable.

Absolutely true.

>
> With 3D there are effectively two metaphoric systems at play. The first is
> the Sims reality - Second Life, et alia. This is the walkthrough model of
> the universe, you are in the perspective of the world, and it is what people
> commonly conjure to mind when they bring up "3D".

The benefits of those are lost on me...


>
> The second metaphor is more subtle - it is the mathematical domain that 3D
> opens up; fractally effects, vapors, applications that are able to twist and
> distort and reform because they are rendered onto a mathematically complex
> domain. The 2D desktop's not going away, but the ability to organize
> in 2.5space (

I like that term 2.5D...

> i.e., z-ordered content, not something with a fractal dimension of 2.5) is
> significant, even with a static viewpoint. Data visualization comes from
> this, and data visualization is frankly the great unexplored world where XML
> should, by all rights, excel. Why? Because data visualization typically
> requires the ability to transform content on the fly, sometimes radically
> so, with the presentation layer being built in ways that can't necessarily
> be predicted a priori. XML is superb at that, whereas related technologies
> such as Flash are only good so long as you stay within the fairly limited
> confines of what a packaged toolset can provide.

but I never got my browser to render an xml doc as 3d..? How did you do that?

David