GopherVR is a 3-D environment for Gopherspace, allowing you
to "walk around a server" and get a graphic view of its
contents using a simple VR-type world. The version 0.2
source code was lost for many years, but has recently been
re-discovered, and GopherVR is again in active development.
gophervr_0-4-1_macosx.zip =
This is a version 0.4.1 of GopherVR for Macintosh OS X.
It contains a launcher that maintains a Dock icon, and
autostarts X11. You must install OpenMotif first. This is
a Universal Binary that will run on 10.4+. Put it in your
Applications folder.
GopherVR_0-2_irix5-3.tar.Z =
This is the Irix 5.3 alpha-test release of GopherVR; and the
only client still in existance that was compiled from the
version 0.2 source code, before that code was "lost".
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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
navigationn within the scene without hardware Z-buffer.
You may want to view the two Quicktime movie files to get a better
idea of what the VR interface is all about.
============
Announcement
============
GopherVR 0.2 for X is now available
With this software 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.
Binary versions are available for the following platforms:
SunOS 4.1.3_U1
Solaris 2.4 (sparc and X86)
Irix 5.3
AIX 3.2.5
Linux
DEC OSF/1 2.1
New Features in GopherVR v0.2 for X
-----------------------------------
* Implemented Gopher Searches. You'll need this version to check out
the document clustering server.
* Implemented "Open Location" (aka Open URL) dialog boxes.
