Designing an Infite Digital Bookcase
A digital interface needs to be intuitive, while taking advantage of the lack of constraints in a virtual space
The digital bookcase interface looks like the shelves in your living room, but it is also capable of showcasing a much bigger number of titles available online than the number of the books in a traditional shelf. The digital bookcase is an infinite 3D helix. You can spin it side-to-side and up and down with your mouse. It holds 3D models of more than 10,000 titles from Google Books.
The books are organized into 28 subjects. To choose a subject, you have to click the subject button near the top of your screen when viewing the bookcase. The camera then flies to that subject. Clicking on a book pulls it off the shelf and brings it to the front and center of the screen. When you click on the high-resolution cover the book open to a page with title and author information as well as a short synopsis, provided by the Google Books API. All of the visuals are rendered with WebGL, a technology in Google Chrome and other modern browsers that enables fast, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics right in the browser.
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