I watched the Microsoft Next Generation of Windows presentation today. {Link removed due to being removed by Microsoft}. Rarely have I been this excited after seeing a technical presentation. I think the last time this occurred was when I saw a Sun SPARC Workstation with a GUI and mouse instead of the old terminals and green screens. Seriously, it was quite fascinating to say the least, but there are some things that came out of this that made me think about Trainz and other games. There's some great technology for us PC users to look forward to in the future, but more importantly how is this going to impact us.
On the surface, if we're running current technology, nothing is going to be different other then the interface that we call Windows. Then again, i's going to be more of the same which we are used to. There is going to be more in-your-face connectivity, which seems to be aimed at the corporate collaborative crap which most of us no longer care about such as the integration of Skype and OneNote into a big business package. This reminded me of Oracle's Beehive Collaborative Suite with the drawing board, whiteboard, and video chat. I became quite familiar with this while at that company for quite a few years.
After the big blah about the corporate stuff and integration of Office on Windows phones, the first big announcement today was on the new DirectX12 technology. So much for DirectX11 which has now been implemented into TANE. With DX12 there will be supposedly another 50% again improvement in performance and loading of geometry and power savings at the same time. This means that video cards won't fry as they attempt to load up great 3d scenes and push the polys around. This of course will require the hardware behind it to make it happen, and I'm not sure who is making DX12 video cards just yet as I haven't looked too deeply after the presentation. What
That aside the more interesting thing to come out of this is their new HoloLens. http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us?ocid=ASPEN_SEM_bing_&cid=ASPEN_SEM_bing_
This is a brand new technology that will display holographic, 3-dimensional objects in live space. Yup. You can touch, manipulate, move around, and modify objects as though they exist in your room. This was quite a fascinating demo which I saw on the video, however, those that were there in person got some more behind the scenes view. What caught my eye though was some 3d models of buildings and trees. Then I thought... Imagine what could be done if Trainz was capable of making use of this new technology. Instead of having our 3d-world restricted to the confines of a monitor and instead be able to walk around the baseboard while we place our tracks and buildings, then eventually go for a drive. As we move along, the hardware will render in real time, our baseboards one after another with a nearly infinite distance, which is helped by the high-end GPU, CPU, and HPU (the new Holographic CPU) built into the system. These are all driven by the new Windows 10 technology and of course most likely DX12. The software developer has to write for this hardware so off-the-shelf, already created applications, won't use the new interface. Too bad though as that would open up a whole new computing world.
But imagine being in Surveyor as we build routes and reaching up and picking a building, an interactive industry, or perhaps some trees from a totally newly designed interface, and placing them with our hands on the ground instead of clicking with a mouse. We then get up and walk along our routes, or perhaps rise up above them as we place objects. I sat there daydreaming as Microsoft continued with its presentation, which at this point was only a recap of what was discussed before.
I know I could have placed this thread in the Parts and Labour forum, but there are many people who don't look at that part of the forums. This is going to be some exciting times coming ahead for us in the computer world.
John
On the surface, if we're running current technology, nothing is going to be different other then the interface that we call Windows. Then again, i's going to be more of the same which we are used to. There is going to be more in-your-face connectivity, which seems to be aimed at the corporate collaborative crap which most of us no longer care about such as the integration of Skype and OneNote into a big business package. This reminded me of Oracle's Beehive Collaborative Suite with the drawing board, whiteboard, and video chat. I became quite familiar with this while at that company for quite a few years.
After the big blah about the corporate stuff and integration of Office on Windows phones, the first big announcement today was on the new DirectX12 technology. So much for DirectX11 which has now been implemented into TANE. With DX12 there will be supposedly another 50% again improvement in performance and loading of geometry and power savings at the same time. This means that video cards won't fry as they attempt to load up great 3d scenes and push the polys around. This of course will require the hardware behind it to make it happen, and I'm not sure who is making DX12 video cards just yet as I haven't looked too deeply after the presentation. What
That aside the more interesting thing to come out of this is their new HoloLens. http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us?ocid=ASPEN_SEM_bing_&cid=ASPEN_SEM_bing_
This is a brand new technology that will display holographic, 3-dimensional objects in live space. Yup. You can touch, manipulate, move around, and modify objects as though they exist in your room. This was quite a fascinating demo which I saw on the video, however, those that were there in person got some more behind the scenes view. What caught my eye though was some 3d models of buildings and trees. Then I thought... Imagine what could be done if Trainz was capable of making use of this new technology. Instead of having our 3d-world restricted to the confines of a monitor and instead be able to walk around the baseboard while we place our tracks and buildings, then eventually go for a drive. As we move along, the hardware will render in real time, our baseboards one after another with a nearly infinite distance, which is helped by the high-end GPU, CPU, and HPU (the new Holographic CPU) built into the system. These are all driven by the new Windows 10 technology and of course most likely DX12. The software developer has to write for this hardware so off-the-shelf, already created applications, won't use the new interface. Too bad though as that would open up a whole new computing world.
But imagine being in Surveyor as we build routes and reaching up and picking a building, an interactive industry, or perhaps some trees from a totally newly designed interface, and placing them with our hands on the ground instead of clicking with a mouse. We then get up and walk along our routes, or perhaps rise up above them as we place objects. I sat there daydreaming as Microsoft continued with its presentation, which at this point was only a recap of what was discussed before.
I know I could have placed this thread in the Parts and Labour forum, but there are many people who don't look at that part of the forums. This is going to be some exciting times coming ahead for us in the computer world.
John
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