Back to the Future:WPF Part 2
The WPF 3D team really impressed me with it’s new 3dTools extensions for WPF. They have included a bunch of features..
1) pulling photos from the Flickr XML webservice then displaying them in a 3D moving background.
2) 2d controls mapped onto the 3D surfaces (for instance in the picture you can move the 3d rotation in the background around manually).
3) when you chose a picture you can select it and pop up a window that you can write a “blog” entry about a picture you have selected.
4) the 3d world map lets you select content and see in 3d via a globe and a pushpin where the entry came from.
This isn’t the slickest looking demo but the technology it represents is an evolutionary step forward. Which means in the future we will see future applications with true 3d interfaces realized and 3d controls. It’s a big step forward. If you want to see this download the 3D tools from the above link and download the photobrowser sampler application that is there.
This was supposed to not be possible with the current 1.0 WPF capabilities, but since it’s there we’ll start seeing designers take advantage of this technology more rapidly than was expected.
