"Rolodex"

Leveraging 3D graphics for linear and non-linear slide presentations
David Frerichs, david <at> frerichs.net
April 1999
 

Rolodex is the output of a conversion routine I wrote for PowerPoint slide presentations. Rolodex allows a single mode of operation to cover sequential access, random access and viewing of a series of slides. The slides are presented in rows back into the screen similar to a series of cards stored in a card file. In this configuration, the user can view the titles on a large number of slides at once. As the user moves their mouse over the cards, each one responds by popping up slightly to indicate that it will respond to the click gesture. When clicked, the card rises out of the deck, aligns to the viewer and fills the screen so as to be viewed in the same manner as a common 2D slide presentation. To move on, the user simply clicks on the card again to put it away and is free to repeat the process to go to the next slide or to thumb through to find the slide of choice.

The inspiration for this application comes from observing people attempting to switch between linear and non-linear modes of access during a slide presentation. The presenter is rolling along when a sudden question from the audience causes him to say "I was going to talk about that later, but since you brought it up..." The presenter then spends a good deal of time switching out of presentation mode to go to the slide sorter searching for the one of forty slides that will answer the question. This transition is very disruptive, sometimes inspiring side conversations in the audience.

By providing a 3D environment as a superset to the 2D presentation, the problems of access and transition are eliminated. Here are some of the positive qualities of the result:
 

• It leverages depth to present more information on the screen at once when compared to a 2D slide sorter.
• It allows both linear and non-linear access to the data without modality.
• It presents a non-modal interface that eliminates confusion. Potential actions and results are visible and reversible.
• It uses a very physical (experiential) metaphor that is immediately understandable.
• It's 3D nature disappears in favor of the application.

 
The following are some screen shots of a PowerPoint presentation which was downloaded from the SGI Web site and converted into the Rolodex format. In this example, the application was running at ~30fps at a resolution of 1024x768 with 32-bit color. The slides in this example are high-resolution texture maps, each having a resolution of 1024x768.
 

Figure 1. Initial loading. The slides recede into the screen with the titles clearly visible.
 
 

Figure 2. Triptych showing the mouse-rollover effect on slides 3, 4, and 5. The slide pops up slightly in response to the mouse indicating that it will respond to a click. The pop-up also reveals more of the slide content to preview what will be viewed.
 
 

Figure 3. This composite of four images shows the animation sequence after a slide is selected by clicking. The viewpoint aligns with the slide and the slide moves up and in to fill the screen.
 
 

Figure 4. Here the slide is fully revealed and presented as a 2D surface with full resolution. To move on, the user simply clicks on the slide to put it away and may then proceed to select the next slide.