*** From Net-Happenings Moderator *** Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 17:26:26 -0500 From: The Gopher Team To: gopher-news@boombox.micro.umn.edu Subject: GopherVR v0.1 now available GopherVR 0.1 for Unix and Xwindows is now available. See below for a description of what it is and how it works.. New Features in GopherVR v0.1 for X ----------------------------------- * You can now add ambient sounds to directories (currently this only works on Sun platforms..) To experience it cruise into the U of MN gopher server at gopher.tc.umn.edu * Added a linear browser for Gopher Directories. The browsing window has a history list like Minuet, and an abstract display area. * Added Stilts mode, you can increase your height to look over objects. Look for this on the navigation menu. * Fixed an AIX memory allocation problem. * The Sun executable should run under solaris. As soon as our Solaris 2.4 SDK kit arrives we'll have a native version. * You no longer need the hangglider.nff file in the current directory. It's been replaced with an in core parser. There's a new familiar logo on startup too :-) * X display code uses the multibuffering extension if present. This may not work correctly on some X servers. If this happens set the environment variable NOMULTIBUF to 1, and let us know what platform you were using. What is GopherVR? ----------------- At GopherCON '94 we talked about using 3D scenes as a user interface metaphor for navigating the Internet, visualizing relationships and clustering of documents. Although not yet complete, in this release you can browse Gopher directories by driving around Gopherspace, navigate between Gopher servers by driving through a series of 3D scenes, open items by clicking on them, get overviews of the neighborhood you are in, and view meta-information about items. Because this is an alpha-test release, we are still working on the software and will be doing frequent bugfix releases. Use it at your own risk, and please send us bug reports and comments. We are doing an early release of this software because we have found this to be the best way of quickly shaking out bugs and feature sets. Why a 3D user interface to Gopher? ---------------------------------- Gopher has an explicit organization and structure which is external to the content of the documents, so it is straightforward to map a 3D virtual world interface onto the existing gopher servers. Since the Gopher+ protocol also has provisions for open ended extensions and meta-information that resides external to the content of documents, it is also easy for servers to give 3D-savvy clients the 3D spatial coordinates and orientation of objects in a gopher directory. This means that we can both synthesize 3D scenes from existing non-3D-savvy Gopher servers, and take advanatge of new 3D-savvy servers without reworking the contents of the documents published in Gopher. Virtual world interfaces give us a powerful data visualization tool. GopherVR makes it possible to display clustering of documents which is not feasible on either a menu or a flat page. Combining GopherVR with servers that catagorize and cluster collections of documents will make it possible to visualize complex retationships within collections. To be effective, moving about the 3D scene must be fast and fluid, and GopherVR has been optimized for quick navigation within the scene without hardware Z-buffer. Gettting the software --------------------- GopherVR 0.1 is an alpha-test release of an X-window Gopher client. GopherVR for Unix is curently available for SUN Sparc, SGI, and IBM AIX RS-6000 platforms. At this time, only binaries are available since we expect frequent changes to the source. We have tested the software on SUN SunOS 4.1.3 with MIT X11R5 distribution SGI IRIX 5.3 with SGI's X-windows distribution IBM AIX 3.2.5 with IBM's X-windows distribution To get the software, gopher to boombox.micro.umn.edu and follow the path /gopher/Unix/GopherVR. This brings you to the directory holding the current version of the software. You can also use these URLs to get to the same directory: GopherVR binaries will be available for HP-UX and DEC OSF, Linux, and Solaris 2.4 soon. If you find a bug, please report it to us by sending an e-mail decribing your computer, the version of the operating system and how you caused the bug to occur. If you have ideas for features we'd love to hear about it. Send your bug reports and comments to: . Internet Gopher Team / mongoose & iguana squad Fuzzy Monkey Productions