Tactile 3D

This is no game. Tactile 3D is the next generation 3D desktop which helps in organizing your files and directories by allowing you to customize their position in a 3D space. All common file operations are supported. Welcome to cyberspace.

Tactile is a 3D file explorer with the ability to organize in a 3D space by exploiting useful visual and audible cues. The design of the interface is based on our remarkable ability to recall the placement of a virtually unlimited number of stationary objects. Tactile 3D effectively identifies files, directories, and drives by using various 3D models.

Tactile 3D improves upon traditional tree-based file system interfaces. It is more than a 3D replacement for your 2D desktop. It is an organization system for entire hierarchies of information. It will not try to take-over your current desktop and runs as a standard windows application.

The Tactile 3D UI allows you to roam around a 3D space and place objects where you want. Each object gives clues as to its contents by emitting sounds and mapping thumbnails and icons onto certain faces. Other cues include a faster rotation rate for recently accessed content, different lighting for read-only files, and variation in collision sound effects based on file size.

Structurally Tactile 3D allows you to explore your entire filesystem. You are able to enter spaces like hard drives, removable media, and directories. The overall impression this leaves is one of exploring a vast virtual landscape, with each directory being a new world. It's difficult to describe, so simply try it for yourself.

All objects are numbered, and you can easily scroll to the next or previous one. This is particularly useful for scrolling through image or photo collections. There is a hot-key system that works like radio buttons in a car. Hit the hot-key and you are instantly transported to that location. To use Tactile 3D for organizing music on your CDs, simply grab and move your favourite mp3 tracks to the side. The next time that CD is inserted, Tactile 3D will remember where you placed them. You'll be able to quickly determine what tracks you want to play.

Here are some key features of "Tactile 3D":

Fast high-quality rendering speeds are achieved via use of the OpenGL graphics library.

The OpenAL audio rendering library is used for producing spacialized audio effects.

If you have a tactile feedback mouse it will be utilized in the Tactile 3D environment. The Logitech iFeel mouse is one such device.

Files, directories, and drives may be placed anywhere in the 3D world. This is an extremely powerful organizational tool. The places you decide to put your information are much easier to remember than linear directory lists sorted by various criteria. The extra dimension afforded by 3D buys an aweful lot of power.

Every container (drive or directory) has a sorting box. Objects inside this box can be sorted into different 3d configurations, like a double-helix, pyramid, or cylinder. The sorting key may be set, be it name, filesize, type, or modification date, as well as the direction. Objects outside the box are considered user placed.

When Tactile 3D doesn't have focus it goes to sleep. It basically uses 0% in this state; or you can set it to update at a slower fps. The neat thing is, it's still very responsive. It's a very light sleeper. If, for example, a window is dragged over-top of Tactile 3D, it responds immediately when a redraw is needed (and only when one is needed). Tactile 3D is responsive yet respectful of other applications need for CPU time. When an application is opened, Tactile 3D will immediately go to sleep. You shouldn't notice any difference in the launch times of your apps.

Tactile 3D handles monitor resolution changes by scaling the window to preserve the same proportion of desktop space . It is able to do this if the resolution is changed while it's in operation. If Tactile 3D isn't running then it resizes itself the next time it is executed.

Tactile 3D incorporates a unique navigation system which allows the user to quickly and easily move around in the 3D space using a standard 2-button mouse. It does this without complex modes that reduce degrees of freedom.

Tactile 3D maps the familiar desktop icons onto the faces of the information matter models. This helps reduce the learning curve and makes it immediately clear what type of data is being viewed or accessed. If thumbnails of the filetype are supported, Tactile 3D will map them onto the model. This thumbnail support is intergrated into the shell; if you install a third party thumbnail viewer for specific file-types, they will work in Tactile 3D as well (at a good quality level to boot).

Quick jump keys. A simple press of a key can fly you to your most frequented locations in the information space. Pressing a key twice sets the current location to that hot-key. This feature makes Tactile 3D faster to use than most other 2D file exploring applications.

Within the Tactile 3D environment many of the properties you'd associate with a file are represented graphically. A hidden file pr folder is semitransparent, rotation rates indicate last modification date, read-only status is represented by a red hue, etc.

Requirements:

￭ Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP. The SSE instructions are required. ￭ OpenGL 1.4 and latest graphics card drivers. ￭ 512 MB Main Mem. ￭ Wheel Mouse. ￭ Decent graphics card. Minimum GeForce2 or equiv. 32MB VRAM. ￭ Decent sound card. Minimum SB Live! or equiv.

Limitations:

￭ 31-day trial