O O Ø O O O O
Invasion of the NURBS
Or, Render This: Dealing with un-photorealistic expectations.
Why are 3D modelling programs so hostile? Why are their interfaces so bad? Why are their user manuals totally illegible?
Lately I’ve been hip deep in computer-assisted design visualization, so I’ve naturally come up with some philosophical stumpers like these.
Representing anything in one less dimension than actual is a difficult prospect, so 3D modelling programs are allowed to be sophisticated. They are not, however, allowed to be totally opaque.
When I look up a question in the user reference (“Help!”), and under the deceptively disarming title “How to make things,” and the first sentence contains the word NURBS, I want to throttle the vendor’s technical writer. (Non-uniform, rational B-splines, in case you were wondering.)
When the next vendor replaces their reams of cryptic and microscopically labelled toolbar icons with shiny-happy OS-X-style buttons that are just slightly different than their previous versions, but without the text labels, I want to bitch slap the product manager.
When the industry’s
800 pound
gorilla makes a habit of explaining terms by using the term,
(“Dynamic Views can be created by using the DVIEW
command.” Thanks. What the hell does it do?) I want to throw up
my arms and declare that life is too short for any of it.
If I weren’t the low rung in the totem pole around here, I might do just that.
And if I weren’t so bloody busy trying to figure out these infernal applications, I’d really break off rant about it.
Evan Spence
Tuesday, February24, 2004
PD DCXL