You can use multiple monitors to increase your desktop space. You can also buy one of those large LCD or an even larger plasma screens to give you more work space. With the number of windows, frames, views, or perspectives that you would like to have in a modern Software Delivery Optimization development platform, you really want the largest work space you can find (or afford?). Pat Kerpan, Borland’s CTO, have discussed the need for a large screen to allow the display and interaction of a wide range of the reusable artifacts that team members can use. The Object Management Group (OMG) has a web page that contains a Catalog of Modeling and Metadata Specifications. The catalog includes the Reusable Asset Speficication that was adopted June 6, 2004. Working on a project rich in reusable assets, and a robust development platform that gives you access to them all, how can you have a workspace that is large enough to feel comfortable and still be powerful enough to take command of the size and scope? Where can you find a desktop large enough?
I found the answer at Stanford University’s Human Computer Interaction Lab. The Interactive Mural is a 6 foot by 3.5 foot, 64 dpi display. The mural supports freehand sketching and displaying images, models, GUI applications, and more. The mural bridges the gap between desktop computer interfaces and the use of whiteboards. From the paper, "A Distributed Graphics System for Large Tiled Displays", I learned that the Interactive Mural was created using eight 1024×768, 900 lumen LCD projectors, Screen material from Stewart filmscreen, two tracking cameras and a laser pointer for input. The graphics system uses buffered OpenGL.
PostBrainstorm, a collaboration between Francois Guimbretiere, Maureen Stone, and Terry Winograd, uses the Interactive Mural as an interactive wall for design brainstorming. Imagine the pleasure of leveraging the large workspace along with an integrated software development platform that allows you to define, model, create, modify, search, test, hyperlink, document, and deliver complex software applications. Terry Winograd and Francois Guimbretiere presented a design for "Visual Instruments for an Interactive Mural" at the 1999 ACM SIGCHI conference. Interactive display devices, like the Interactive Mural, make the Tablet PC look like a three by five inch index card.
Imagine running Project Themis on the Interactive Mural. If I can just get my office remodeled so that I can fit the mural on the wall. Oh, what fun that would be!
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