Example of a ZUI

In computing, a Zooming User Interface or ZUI is a graphic environment that allows users to interact with system objects. It is a fairly evolutionary outgrowth of the graphical user interface, or GUI. A ZUI can represent different levels of scale and detail, and the user can change the scale of the viewed area in order to show more detail. Image File history File links ZUI_example. ... Image File history File links ZUI_example. ... Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science that deals with the original sense of computing mathematical calculations. ... A graphical user interface (or GUI, often pronounced gooey) is a method of interacting with a computer through a metaphor of direct manipulation of graphical images and widgets in addition to text. ...

In Zooming User Interfaces, information elements are shown directly on an infinite virtual desktop (usually created using vector graphics), instead of in windows. Users can pan across the virtual surface in two dimensions and zoom into objects of interest. For example, as you zoom into a text object it may be represented as a small dot, then a thumbnail of a page of text, then a full-sized page and finally a magnified view of the page. Virtual desktop is a term used, usually within the WIMP paradigm, to describe any of several possible ways in which a computers metaphorical desktop environment is modified, through the use of software. ... Example showing effect of vector graphics on scale: (a) original vector-based illustration; (b) illustration magnified 8x as a vector image; (c) illustration magnified 8x as a raster image. ...

The ZUI is an interface paradigm that is seen by some as a flexible and realistic successor to the traditional windowing GUI. However, compared with ongoing GUI development efforts, the resources devoted to creating ZUIs is small.

History

The longest running effort to create a ZUI has been the Pad++ project started by Ken Perlin, Jim Hollan, and Ben Bederson at New York University and continued at the University of New Mexico under Hollan's direction. After Pad++, Bederson developed Jazz and later Piccolo [1] at the University of Maryland, College Park, which is still actively being developed in Java and C#. More recent ZUI efforts include Archy by the late Jef Raskin, and the simple ZUI of the Squeak Smalltalk programming environment and language. Dr. Ken Perlin is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Director of the Media Research Laboratory, both at New York University. ... New York University (NYU) is a major research university in New York City. ... The University of New Mexico (UNM) is a public university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. ... The University of Maryland, College Park (also known as UM, UMD, or UMCP) is a public university located in College Park, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., USA. As the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland, the university is most often referred to as the University of Maryland... Java is an object-oriented programming language developed by James Gosling and colleagues at Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... Archy is a proposed radically new system for interacting with many kinds of computers. ... Jef Raskin outdoors, photographed by his son Aza Raskin. ... The Squeak programming language is a Smalltalk implementation, derived directly from Smalltalk-80, by Smalltalks originators, so it is object-oriented, and reflective. ... Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective, programming language designed at Xerox PARC by Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Ted Kaehler, Adele Goldberg, and others during the 1970s, influenced by Sketchpad and Simula. ...

GeoPhoenix [2], a Cambridge, MA, startup associated with the MIT Media Lab, founded by Julian Orbanes and Adriana Guzman, released the first mass-marketed commercial Zoomspace in 2002-3 on the Sony CLIÉ PDA handheld, with Ken Miura [3] of Sony. The Wiesner Buildings Atrium The MIT Media Lab in the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology engages in education and research in the digital technology used for expression and communication. ...

External links

ZUI projects

• Pad++ (defunct)
• Piccolo
• ZoomDesk
• AutoBAHN
• mjoo
• ZoomDesk An experimental zooming desktop.
• Zoomable Visual Transformation ZUI toolkit for Java.
• Piccolo ZUI toolkit for Java and C#.

Examples

• PhotoMesa Zooming photo browser.
• Flash ZUI Uses content from independent servers.
• Relevare A notable implementation for web navigation.
• Google Maps Zoomable world map with integrated search.
• 3D Topicscape 3D concept mapping software for organizing information.