3D desktop – BumpTop

svebee — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:09:53 +0000

I have found one nice-looking application on the Internet, so I wanted to try it out in practice, to see how it looks and how it works. It’s an application for creating a 3D Desktop – BumpTop. On the first look, it’s an application which needs attention, very good looking, has some “physics” in itself for creation of virtual 3D space, as you have it right in front of you. All files, folders and documents you collect in piles and then you search through them as you need them. The idea at the first look is very good and innovative, but when you try it out in practice, you see it isn’t so good. Physic table and 3D space is something totally different from virtual 3D space and that’s clear to everyone, but the company is right with the idea to try to promote to this software. It’s not functioning. It requires too many unneeded clicks to get some file or folder which is buried deep in piles or simply rambling around.

After installation, I have run it and get next screen (on the left side is the original desktop and on the right side is the desktop where I ran BumpTop for the first time):

After some sorting…

Pretty messy, don’t you think? It’s possible to put some sticky notes on the walls of 3D space by simply dragging pictures/photographs onto the wall, but it’s not so useable although somewhat good looking. On the right side you will notice icons: New Mail, Facebook and Twitter – so if you, for example, want send some email with picture attached to it you simply drag an image to the New Mail icon and there you go – picture is attached already, nice possibility, but, is it useable? Facebook icon, the same thing. You drag a picture to an icon and it shows up on your Facebook profile. You can double click on some of the walls for a better view, you can split up, create piles, sort them in a grid and so on. The biggest problem is you lose so much space, the icons are bigger, clumsier and it’s so hard to manipulate them (although you can manually shrink them or select them to expand – but that’s just more and more clicks). RAM memory usage is about 50Mb, behind that whole application has some jugging (every few milliseconds it has a jug), there is no smooth movement at all. The idea of this application can be seen after just a few minutes with it – it’s all just makeup. 3D space and virtual 3D space are just two different worlds so one doesn’t function like the other. If you want to see a demonstration of this application, please see the video down below (originalni link).

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

svebee (English) » Desktop

3D desktop – BumpTop