A few years ago a 3d desktop that ran off of opengl was introduced called 3dtop. It was pretty sweet you could set up different rooms to house different programs, create a virtual office all sorts of nifty stuff(3d spinning icons, aditional light sources) it did have some stability issues unfortunately. Is it possible to create something similaar?

There hasn't been anywork on it since 1999 and was free for personnel use, but I'm not sure if they have any patents or anything anyways this is something that could really kick ass.

well, there are other similar 3d desktop programs out there (one that comes to mind is 3dna. however, they kinda suck. they're pretty slow, and due to everything that's being drawn, kinda resource intensive (at least compared to litestep, or explorer). but (I believe I read another thread like this a while back), there's nothing that litestep can do to mimic this. at least, not right now. I don't know if the devs have something like this in mind, but I doubt it.

that would be coool!

walk into the amp room. chill out look at the wall art's. Listen to the nice music coming from the stereo.
Go into the mainframe suite, do some coding on a VR interface, walk into the VR interface, do some coding, VR, coding, ahhhhhhhhhhhh............

Its been awhile since I looked at the directx license info... but I'ld like to try and create an implementation of litestep that utilizes directx for a project...

I have some Ideas for stuff that'ld be cool to play with. having all your web browser windows as different textures on a free floating polygon... and you can't forget the dancing robots... total TRON action(evil grin)

assuming we can do this without alienating various Microsoft Bodies anyone want in on developement?

PS 3dtop was fast even on a K6-3 with a voodoo 3500

I'd like to see an implementation of this, although not in rooms and stuff more like 3d icons, cursors, bars, labels; etc. That could be affected by certain light sources.

When I first heard about 3D shells I questioned how pratical such an interface would be. Sure it will look unique but will it allow for more functionality? Will it be anything more than a gimmick? I believe not, but this may be a limitation of my own imagination. I'm still fascinated to see what can be produced and am always a sucker for eyecandy.

I have tried it two years ago, and it was fun to start off with, like having a room for each different program. Walking around the desktop like a first person shoot-them-up, jumping into programs to start it... Then when you want to get some work done all hell is set loose, like "oh where is that program gone" then you start wandering around the maze finding your program, you get motion sickness after a while...

Haha that'd be an interesting idea..you have to frag Microsoft Word before you can get that report done :P