
Spatial Interfaces - streulpita
https://johnpalmer.site/#/spatialinterfaces
======
leppr
_> It seems that the only way to build an app that replicates the full
functionality a deck of cards is to build a 3D simulation or game. Model the
cards in 3D and put them on a 3D table. As long as you have controls for
reaching out and picking up the cards, and moving them in space, you can do
anything you can do in real life._

Unless you also want to enable castle building, no, I think a 3D interface
would only add unnecessary complexity and cognitive burden. A 2D UI on desktop
with keys for moving, flipping, looking at cards, and stacking, splitting,
shuffling decks seems feasible.

On the other hand, if you spend time surveying the state-of-the-art in 3D
input and real-time 3D physics engine, it will be clear how far away a
functional deck of card simulation is. We simply don't have the tech now, and
won't for the next 10 years.

3D games work because their focus is extremely limited (racing, shooting
games), and/or low resolution (minecraft). As soon as you try to emulate the
real world, you get things like Surgeon Simulator[1], where the awkwardness of
the medium becomes fun in and of itself, albeit extremely unproductive.

[1]
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/518920/Surgeon_Simulator_...](https://store.steampowered.com/app/518920/Surgeon_Simulator_Experience_Reality/)

~~~
chongli
Tabletop Simulator [1] provides a pretty functional 3D interface for playing
board and card games. It has easy commands for shuffling and dealing cards, to
one or to multiple players, and it gives each player a hand which allows them
to prevent others from peeking at their cards in an otherwise unrestricted 3D
environment.

Early on in the history of TTS it was pretty clumsy but it's gotten much nicer
since they added scripting facilities to let you automate game setup.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_Simulator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabletop_Simulator)

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gfodor
we're working on a 3d avatar-based communication platform at mozilla called
Hubs (hubs.mozilla.com) that is predicated on the idea that shared spatial
awareness and use of media in a shared space will be a common utility in the
future, especially in VR + AR.

~~~
laser
This is super neat! Thanks for the heads up :) there seems to be a bug where
mic audio isn’t transmitted on mobile (iPhone X Safari, iOS 12.4)? Other than
that works shockingly smoothly on mobile. Nice work.

~~~
gfodor
Ah thanks! That's a bummer to hear. We've had to do a number of things to work
around weird issues with Safari iOS's WebRTC implementation. I thought we had
these issued licked -- I just tested on my device which is actually same as
yours with no issues. Would you mind stepping me through a reproduction case
if it's easy? Also, were you using any kind of audio peripherals on either
side? Thanks for the feedback!

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teddyh
> _I could place my personal site on a street near the websites of my friends.
> We could form a little village._

Wasn’t this the thought behind the addressing of pages on GeoCities?

~~~
dirkk0
There is NeoCities now, but it lacks the village aspect.
[https://neocities.org/](https://neocities.org/)

~~~
maitredusoi
I hope it to be the next move in the industry, transforming text webpage into
2D RPG-like interface.

Perhaps that is why webassembly as been create for, to leap forward helping
the emerge of new ( 2.5D) interface.

If not, then A13 iphone 11 will only help the mega bytes of poor dev reactjs
interface sur-comsumming giga watt of power for no reason, and brutalism will
then succeed ;) ;)

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azinman2
Oi. I’m guessing the author is young and doesn’t know that much work was put
into spatial UI in the 80s/90s and flopped for good reason: we might live in a
3D world, but that doesn’t mean computers should emulate that... the world
doesn’t change dynamically in front of me like with a computer. Turns out that
computers are hard and complicated, and simplifying their interaction works
best.

That and most of these problems can be solved in other, better ways... for the
actual parts that are worth answering (no one is asking who is everyone
meeting with now, and tiny avatars don’t answer that any better than a simple
list).

~~~
mattlutze
There's new ways today to interact with digital media than in the 80's and
90's, and it's a little short-sighted to say "some smart people tried it a
while ago so leave it alone."

Deep learning was a cool but impractical idea in the 80's and 90's. In-browser
payments were laughed out of the room when Netscape and Microsoft tried
proposing them to banks and credit card firms in the 90's.

Part of what the author is saying is that, maybe with our current toolset, we
can find that the "simpler" interactions are more physical and interactive now
than tapping and clicking.

Sometimes people actually are asking questions like "Who has meetings right
now? Which rooms can I bump people from? Did half my group go somewhere that I
should be joining?" and a list in Outlook doesn't always fit the bill.
Sometimes I need to know where activity is in a building, and just giving me a
list of zones or spaces in the building is indeed simpler, but less contextual
than, for example, seeing a map with avatars.

There's something good about making what's old new again. It does happen that
things we've decided are out of reach or impractical have a novel solution
waiting in current capabilities.

~~~
coldtea
> _There 's new ways today to interact with digital media than in the 80's and
> 90's, and it's a little short-sighted to say "some smart people tried it a
> while ago so leave it alone."_

It's the core idea that is bad, so the passage of time won't really change
much...

We might built real-world like 3D-UIs to view with Oculus-style goggles, but
3D UIs in the 2D monitor / desktop (outside of gaming and modeling) has been
proven a bad idea time and again.

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venamresm__
Skeuomorphism can be horrible. Just give a glance at what Microsoft attempted
a couple of years ago
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5teG6ou8mWU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5teG6ou8mWU)

Why should we have to emulate real world interactions, the whole idea of
computing is to make tasks easier, less of a cognitive burden, not replicate
them in a virtual world. Sure there are specific kinds of software that are in
need of a more humane approach but I'm not sure skeuomorphism is the answer.

~~~
sanqui
I hate to be pedantic but 1995 is more than a "couple of years ago".

~~~
maitredusoi
;) ;) ;)

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mitchtbaum
I was going to comment about an older link that came up about skeuomorphic
interfaces in Apple's apps, but I didn't want to look it up. Now, I just ran
into a video with multiple layers of it within the first 23 seconds that I've
watched it. So, I switched tabs back over here:

Caravan to Midnight interview on John & Yoko

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJBwsaRmNgQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJBwsaRmNgQ)

I remember now thinking about it when talking to a friend about why he doesn't
like electric cars. The acceleration lacks the intensity, mostly sonically as
we discussed. And I said we could skeuomorphicly add it back in.

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cheez
The Sococo example is bang on. I used it for a contract way back and the
spatial interface is extremely useful. Teams colocate virtually, dedicated
meeting rooms, etc.

The problem is the software is _so bad_. Someone like Zoom needs to buy this
and fix the software.

~~~
maitredusoi
I am not zoom, but I will try to fix it ! Please tell us all your worries
about it

~~~
cheez
It's just not polished.

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georgewsinger
Can a "spatial interface" make something 10x (not just incrementally) better?
Are there spatial interfaces only possible in VR/AR that meet this threshold?

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maitredusoi
Thx very much!! You just puts words on my theorical researches upon making new
kind of interaction in our constraint SaaS admin world (from now on Bootcamp
CSS like UX is the believed limit).

From my point on view, using classical old school RPG-game type interface will
be one of the possible next move ;)

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reilly3000
I don’t think computers will be a good place for digital spatial interaction
until there is a tactile element. Haptic holograms seem promising, or some
kind of nano/graphene sphere ‘goo’ can provide a meaningful digital interface
in meatspace.

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PinkMilkshake
I'm immediately reminded of BumpTop
([https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=BumpTop](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=BumpTop))

