WebSeitz/wiki

Virtual ThinkingSpace

Idea of a Virtual Reality-based ThinkingSpace. Goal: Augmenting Human Intellect.

As your collection of SenseMaking nodes gets bigger and bushier, trying to manage it on a flat screen is a problem.

So put them in a virtual space surrounding you.

See: WikiGraph Browser/Everything is a Graph, Webs Of Thinkers And Thoughts, Highlighting And Annotating.

Multi-user aspects (to be dug through later): WikiWebDialogue; ThinkerWeb

Technology inspirations: 2014-11-05-D3jsForThreadedChatHolocene, Minority Report/2011-12-19-RaoTabletTouchTinkerUi, 2014-04-23-BrowserWindowGroupsOrSpaces

Hybrid-display idea (because I hate wearing goggles so far)

  • projectors on multiple walls and ceiling (hmm Dynamicland)
  • Kinect/gesture UI to move objects or move POV
  • but detailed reading/interaction with a specific object happens on your laptop - there's a simple gesture to mirror an item there, where you have hi-res monitor and keyboard

The room is filled with a three-dimensional constellation of hypercards, hanging weightlessly in the air. It looks like a highspeed photograph of a blizzard in progress. In some places, the hypercards are placed in precise geometric patterns, like atoms in a crystal. In other places, whole stacks of them are clumped together. Drifts of them have accumulated in the corners, as though Lagos tossed them away when he was finished. SnowCrash

Some usage patterns

A "thinking session" (digital gardening) (which could last 15min or months) involves

  • starting a new "document" as session/container
  • reviewing existing nodes (via connections, search, etc)
    • my defunct Wiki Graph Browser was good for incrementally loading local graph
    • note Miro lets drag browser windows into whiteboard to add node with title/link
  • "keeping" some while "pushing away" others
  • seeing existing connections among the kept nodes
  • moving nodes around in visual whiteboard
  • creating new connections
  • creating new nodes
  • rewriting existing nodes

Hmm, for a "session" like this, since it's more-limited in num-cards, do you need 3D? Or just a better 2D view? Auto/dynamic zooming/fish-eye focus? (see rough d3.js example)

  • could the browser or OS provide this view for a set of windows? Yes, but they would lack the connectors.

Each "node" is an icon/object floating in space around you.

  • a node (document) is really a collection of nodes (NodeWeb)

Zooming in to a node to read, highlight.

Visible connections between nodes ("Beautiful Mind" yarn)

"Group" set of nodes so they "stay close" to each other. (You can make any number of them, and strengthen/weaken their grouping at any moment based on your context.)

bad example

read-only spike

Jul'2018 looking at some libraries even if read-only

Vasco Asturiano

Zach Kinstner work

work on Asturiano approach

Jul02'2018 Going to try the larger-graph example

Jun03

  • make /visualThinkingSpace/ directory inside /static/
  • make index.html page containing just test - works http://localhost:8080/static/visualThinkingSpace/
  • replace index.html with contents from here; create blocks.json from here
    • looks like right container page, but no nodes, suspect need to change code path to blocks.json
    • simple attempt failed, not clear on how the path is defined...
    • hit blocks.json directly, realize (derp) there were some fake bits in there, so fix that file
    • try hitting index.html again, same empty container
  • FireFox crashed my system, restarted, switched to Chrome. Now it works!
  • make real graph file
    • find old json from building WikiGraphBrowser - obviously wrong format, but have raw text file, and script that transformed that into JSON. So will fork script.
  • works! (except node-names 'undefined') https://twitter.com/BillSeitz/status/1014146058023309314
  • would work on that 'undefined' name but realize that, given size of my graph, I should play with his nodes-as-text version first.
    • requires putting each node into a group (he has 10 groups), and set val for each link (which doesn't seem to change view, so I'll just make all those equal)
    • hmm feels "wrong"
  • go back to the previous "large" example
    • realize that example's blocks.json is very different than the little example in the readme!
    • yes! - (using prefix 'reg' for 'regular', 'key', 'blogbit')
  • next
    • make bigger file
    • put online
    • found big file, but it's a different format (it's the format I normally use when adding to my WikiGraph). Need to tweak JSON creator....

Jul05

Jul06

  • make node only if page actually exists: num nodes: 16965, num links: 89330
    • nope still too big
  • generate counts
    • 39.8k gross rows
    • drop ISBN because it's not a "real" page
    • 4 pages have 400+ links: Python, NYC, Google, US. At 300-399: Wiki, WebLog, OpenSource, EBook, Dave Winer
    • drop count=1 rows -> 12.1k
    • drop count=2 rows -> 8.3k
    • top 1k rows hit num=21 (and of num=21 puts me at 1027 rows.
  • tried generating JSON just with 1k rows, but filtering isn't working right...
  • fixed: num nodes: 1027, num links: 6125
  • viewing with Chrome on my Pixel2-XL - you can fly forward, and as you look around the view shifts. But no node labels, which kinda defeats the purpose.
  • any way to use Google Cardboard? Doesn't seem like it. Tried viewing phone with Chrome in the holder, make it more surreal but not really doing stereo, and still no controls or labels...

Twitter thread of screenshots: https://twitter.com/BillSeitz/status/1014146058023309314

graph

Edited:    |       |    Search Twitter for discussion

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