WikiGalaxy: Explore Wikipedia in 3D | Hacker News Reader

WikiGalaxy: Explore Wikipedia in 3D

wiki.polyfra.me

96 pointsimpostervt21 comments

On one hand the interface is interesting and novel, but I'm not sure it really has a lot to offer initially. It's much easier to visualize the relationships between pieces of data with how the linking works, but the individual dots are spread enough that it doesn't provide quite the context that it has the potential to provide.

I'm impressed that it works in Chrome on Linux with no additional plugins or craziness. Their interface is clumsy though, and could learn a lot about user interaction in 3d space from video games.

Their interface is clumsy though, and could learn a lot about user interaction in 3d space from video games.

Yes. I was trying different things with the mouse to help me navigate and orient myself, but aside from zoom, it is just for selection. I'd like to see controls like with the Homeworld series of RTS games, where you can easily rotate around a selected item.

In general, I'm just seeing a sea of topics, without much sense for where I am in the information space. More could be done by varying the size and shape of the nodes to indicate relevance, popularity, or category. I don't think color is enough.

Interesting project!

Funny, works in Chrome on Linux, but not Chromium.

It works on Firefox Linux too.

It's possible to rotate the ship only on a 2D plane, we must use + and - to move on the 3rd axis. This makes navigation slow and goes against our reflexes built with years and years of videogames. I hope it gets added soon.

The nicest thing of this interface is being able to see the links to related pages/stars. For reading a page Wikipedia is best, but this is a better tool for exploring the network.

A suggestion: ESC to close a page.

Looks nice but navigating around feels clumsy, I can't look up or down or move in those directions easily.

I agree. I can't turn left or right. Feels very restricting - opposite of what you'd expect.

Also found it a bit tricky to navigate, and found myself wanting some sort of dynamic reclustering. I searched on 'Film' and got to a nexus very obviously, but then things seemed spread out in very random directions. I'm guessing it is only using unidirectional links? Maybe some sort of Pagerank approach would help - links seemed to float off to essentailly random destiantions like individual film titles, the Wiki article on Celebrity and so on. I didn't get any sense o structure deriving from the internal links of the Wiki page either.

But having thrown out all those criticisms, it's still a great start. I want to browse things like this all the time. I want to see my browser bookmarks organized this way, and many other things. Please keep working on it!

It's a shame you can't click on the inline links between articles. It would be cool to see how the subjects are connected that way; I still have no idea how the articles are organized (although I didn't look very hard).

The absolute highest point I could reach in the visualization was "World Without End" by Ken Follet. I thought that was neat, but then I refreshed and it appeared in a new random location.

I think that before we can judge on the utility on such a presentation, we need the right visualization tool. My hunch is that viewing this with an Oculus would be an entirely different experience.

Completely agree. The closer we get to navigating the net like Johnny Mnemonic, the better!

Amusingly, you can see other people navigating beside you, which is pretty novel, fwiw.

That's a good point. One 2d screen doesn't seem to benefit from the 3 dimensions.

Having it all around, visible and linked might change everything. Very much like whiteboards or other 3 dimensional physical representations (think like in Cop TV shows) help us to see the big picture.

WHy can't I click-drag after selecting an article?

This would be a lot of fun in the Oculus Rift...

Cool, fun, but I would do it with click & hold & drag to pan, rather than requiring keyboard control, if you can.

Interesting -- does anyone know what the moving dots are? Are they other viewers or is that data being updated?

This is Fun. Please Add Proper Navigation options. Rest looks Good in Chrome.

It's beautiful. It's our world. Let's keep going!

It instantly crashes the browser tab in Chrome on Windows 8.1

and oddly works fine in IE

I like Heavy Metal Island, that pink cashew on the left

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