Over the last couple of weeks, I have been exploring two available 3D environments: Croquet and Project Looking Glass. The two projects take distinctly different approaches to their 3D environments.

Alice in Javaland

Project Looking Glass is fairly straightforward, and is the more mature of the two projects. Sponsored by Sun Microsystems and released under the GPL, Project Looking Glass takes a minimalist approach to 3D.

Virtual croquet, anyone?

Croquet is a completely different beast. Foregoing the standard WIMP-style interface, Croquet focuses on an immersive 3D networked environment. A direct descendant of the MMORPG aesthetic, Croquet replaces the desktop metaphor with an immersive world. The mouse pointer becomes an avatar. Applications become interactive objects. Even "legacy" X11 applications are transformed into collaborative environments, allowing multiple people to work or play simultaneously.

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