3D User Interface for a File Management System

Authors

Luiz Fernando Capretz, University of Western OntarioFollow
David Carter, CGIFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 2003

Volume

44

Journal

IEEE Canadian Review

First Page

13

Last Page

15

Abstract

Two-dimensional graphical user interface (GUI) is now firmly established as the preferred interface for most applications. The purpose of this work was to develop a three-dimensional user interface as a front end for a file management system and to evaluate the efficiency of a practical 3D application. In order to create this software, a previously defined 3D graphics engine, called Valve Software’s Half-Life, was extended to provide a directory traversal and the basic file management functions (cut, copy, paste, delete). The project was divided into two basic components: generating the 3D “world”, and altering the Half-Life engine to provide some features of file management.