An overview of what we have available to us while designing views and interactions in XR in our ‘Knowledge Space’.
The primary interactions for these elements will be pinch & drag, along with the Ring system.
Document Hierarchy
- Scene. At the top is the space itself, as one JSON with information about all the contained Frames. Where the XR Documents are contained.
- Saved Scenes. Scenes the user can Save & Recall for layout changes of the elements/contents in the full scene. Does not change interactions and elements (Layout JSON)
- XR Documents. There are two types of XR documents in our system: XR Manuscript & XR Papers. They are logically solely composed of Volumetric Frames.
- Volumetric Frames are full elements, such as list of References which are sub-sections of XR Documents. They can appear flattened, as 3D volumes fully contained or with elements pinched and moved outside of the Frame. They can also appear with background and frame, or with no visual background or frame. The key point is that they are groups which can be moved and interacted with as group units. Each one of these can have more than one visualizations of how to appear. Every Frame can be referenced from the Cover, Outline and Manuscript, as well as link between each other.
Elements
A list of what we can expect to be able to interact with in a current academic paper in HTML or PDF form, or a new academic ‘XR Document’ created in XR. It is what we can get our hands on when authoring.
- Body Text (shown first when manuscript to allow for immediate writing)
- User Notes
- References
- Endnotes & Footnotes
- Marked text, Highlighted text and private Comments
- Lists of Keywords
- Glossary/Defined Concepts
- Photographs/Audio (media)
- Charts (media)
- Interactive Elements/Code (media)
- Front Matter with Abstract and Title/Author name as well as Saved Spatial Configuration lists (shown first when published)
- Outline of Headings (shown second when published)
- Saved Spatial Configurations of these elements
Other Elements in the Scene
Information available while authoring which is not (yet) part of the Volume being authored. These are also in Frames but individual items can be moved out of the frame, while still existing in relation to it.
- XR Papers. References (with annotations) possibly with extractable author names, keywords, dates (with easy to toggle listings and views based on this metadata) which have not yet been used in the document but the user has interest in them. Same as XR Manuscript except
- User Notes written externally or in the workspace, not necessarily referring to the document
- User Images such as drawings and other media for inclusion or inspiration
Placements of Frames
- Freeform in Space.
- Panels. Panels which user can ‘throw’ something to. They can have values attached to them, which the elements then inherit.
- Walls/Table/Body. Place individual elements or Panels onto such surfaces in VR or AR.
User Positions
• Posture. Sitting down and standing up are different. Standing up or facing forwards for organizing information and doing straight writing looking slightly down.
Interactions
The user should be able to:
- Write plain text in a manuscript
- Cite sources, including importing sources
- Arrange Frames , Notes and Media spatially freeform, on Panels or on Walls
Tasks
The tasks the user should be able to perform are:
- Write an article for The Future of Text VI, including citing previous work.