Graphical User Interfaces: 2D, 3D, and Web3D
by Larry Rosenthal, cube productions inc.

Conclusion

Looking for the 3D Interfaces place on the WWW. As the year progresses 2001 will be another year "looking for the killer app" for web3D. The differences between 2D and 3D discussed in this article should, I hope, assist developer/designers in the choice to utilize each or the other on the Internet. The 2D interface has always existed within the natural 3D world as a way to simplify and organize the information of world around us. The 3D interface can simulate that world and offer the beginnings of it's properties and our natural reactions and emotions to them. The capability to offer 3D interfaces to the WWW via all these web3D technologies should offer designers and developers a way to offer communications and interfaces that can be used for certain applications more effectively than ever before.

For Web3D though to succeed as a widely used web media it must be used to its inherent interface strengths and not as just adding the latest technology to a web page.

In closing, “The task should define the interface” The designer/developer should define the technologies required to create the interface needed to fulfill the task. Web3D as one of those technologies offers the complexities of the 3D interface, with it the benefits and challenges of communicating with 3D. When properly adopted, Web3D can provide a unique interactive experience that may in fact become deeper than what the 2D Interface can and have for now provided.

Table of Contents:

• The Last Decade's Battle
• The Principles of 2D and 3D Interfaces and Communications
• What 3D Interface and Communications Add
• Conclusion

(C) 2001 cube3 productions

Previous Features
* Interactive Web Graphics with Shout3D Book
* Web3D 2001 Coverage
* Core Web3D Book
* Spazz3D: Authoring-tool
* Game Programming in VRML
* State of the Industry
* The X3D Initiative (2000)
* Alphabet Soup: Our glossary of technical acronyms