Chinese (simp) page
Czech page
French page
German page
Italian page
Japanese page
Spanish page
LG3D

Welcome to Project Looking Glass!

JavaOne Related Info   

Summer of Code Project sponsored by   

Download and Installation: Linux/Solaris x86, Windows   


What if your desktop were actually a 3D environment? What if your CD or movie database became a 3D jukebox? Project Looking Glass is based on Java technology and explores bringing a richer user experience to the desktop and applications via 3D windowing and visualization capabilities. It is an open source development project based on and evolved from Sun Microsystems' Advanced Development division. It supports running unmodified existing applications in a 3D space, as well as APIs for 3D window manager and application development. At the moment, existing application integration is supported for Linux and Solaris x86 platforms. The platform for 3D application development is available for Linux, Solaris and Windows platforms.

Project Looking Glass

Project Looking Glass is in its infancy. We need your help to explore many ideas in the desktop and application space. We released the Project Looking Glass code to the whole community to explore every aspect of the technology rather than restricting access to a privileged few. We believe open development is an excellent model to pursue this exciting and vast opportunity. So get involved and let's innovate the computer user interface!

Java technology is the primary development language. We believe it is a good choice especially because of the productivity gains it brings and the rich set of supporting API's we can draw on. Having said that we are planning C++ bindings so native applications can interact directly with the system.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's New

Version 0.7 Release is now available here under the Stable builds section.

Jar-based Application Deployment within LG3D document is now available!

Building and Running LG3D with NetBeans document is now available!

To get started, refer to the "Getting started with Project Looking Glass" document.

Get the latest information at the discussion forum!

Contributor Spotlight

Van der Haegen Mathieu Van der Haegen Mathieu (dwarfy)

" Some time ago I discovered the famous project looking glass video. I was pretty excited about it but I tought : "Oh my god, what kind of monster computer is hidden behind the scene ?". After that I discovered that it had become a GPL project on java.net. So I downloaded it and tried it right away. What a great surprise to discover that it was running smoothly on my "common" computer ! (Who said that Java was slow ?). I really believe that Looking Glass is _the_ next generation desktop, It brings freshness and innovation in a sector that was kinda "dead" for me. And that's why I try to participate as much as I can ! "

I'm sure that everyone is impressed by Dwarfy's enthusiasm and contribution to the project. Lots of testing, the Game of Life incubator project, sharing cool ideas, and leading a number of forum discussions. His contribution to make the project more active has been just outstanding. A big thank you to Dwarfy!

Other spotlighted contributors
LG3D Development Team Info Wiki

Supported Key Features

Currently we are focusing on providing core functionality to kick start the 3D exploration and refining the initial platform. The current platform supports the following key features:

  • Existing application (X11 client) initial integration (app status)
  • Client-server scenegraph platform
  • Serverside behavior execution
  • Support for generic event system
  • Initial set of core API for building 3D widget set
  • Support for utilities for animated user feedback

For those who just can't wait....

To get started and to set up a development environment refer to the "Getting started with Project Looking Glass" document. If you are a Windows user, check out "Running the LG3D Developer's Release on Microsoft Windows".

Once you have a working development environment, you should read the "Project Looking Glass Developer's Guide" which provides detailed information on Project Looking Glass and building 3D applications for this project. If you are a NetBeans user, check out "Building and Running LG3D with NetBeans". And "Project Looking Glass Tutorials" explains how to program LG3D applications.

When you are ready to contribute code or documentation to the project, see the "Contributing to Project Looking Glass" document to learn how to do that.


On Going Sub-projects

Here is a list of subprojects going under the lg3d-core (and lg3d-demo-apps, lg3d-incubator). Thank you for the offers! If you would be interested in proposing something, that's great! Please reply to this thread at the javadesktop.org forum and let us know your ideas. Please check out the lg3d-x11 project page for the topics specific to the X11 integration. If you would like to help out with an existing subproject please post on the forum, I'm sure the teams would be greatful for extra resources.

Zoetrope - an LG3D Image Viewer

How to Contribute

As the first step, please consider becoming a project Observer, familiarizing yourself with the project and participating to the discussion forum. Please refer to the Contributing to Project Looking Glass document for more information on how to contribute to the project. See the JavaDesktop Community Governance Guidelines for general guidelines on participating in JavaDesktop community projects, such as Project Looking Glass.

Reporting Issues

Information on current problems and issues can be found by clicking on Issue tracker in the Project tools section on the sidebar. You can search for issues and defects or find a specific issue. If you encounter an issue that has not been filed, please go ahead and file one. You may want to search the email archive at the discussion forum at javadesktop.org to find out related information.

When you report an issue, please try to be specific about your machine environment and the symptom you are encountering. When you encounter a crash, the following log files will provide good information:

If you're new to Issue tracking, you might want to take a moment to browse these introductory docs:

Staying Connected

The Project Looking Glass project is evolving continually. The best way to keep up to date with Project Looking Glass developments is by subscribing to the Project Looking Glass mailing lists. Click on Mailing lists in the Project tools section of the side bar on https://lg3d.dev.java.net/. There are several mailing lists to choose from depending on your level of interest.

Resources

Some final words...

Thanks for your interest in the project and spending your time reading this. We hope you will join our project and explore this fun opportunity with us. We also have an irc-channel going, not very active yet but it's a start, the link is: #projectlookingglass on irc.freenode.net

The Project Looking Glass Development Team


$Revision: 1.163 $ $Date: 2005/06/26 13:57:15 $