GopherVR for SGI Irix
(ver 0.5.0)
Freeware


GopherVR is a 3-D environment for Gopherspace, allowing you
to "walk around a server" and get a graphic view of its 
contents using a simple VR-type world.  The version 0.2 
source code was lost for many years, but has recently been
re-discovered, and GopherVR is again in active development.

This is the latest version of GopherVR for Irix, which has 
been pre-built for an Irix 6.5.10 or higher OS. You must have 
a compatible SGI MIPS workstation for it to function.  The 
software has been tested on a SGI Indy and a SGI Fuel machine.


==============
Historic Notes
==============

Why a 3D user interface to Gopher?
----------------------------------
Gopher has an explicit organization and structure which is
external to the content of the documents, so it is straightforward
to map a 3D virtual world interface onto the existing gopher
servers. Since the Gopher+ protocol also has provisions for open 
ended extensions and meta-information that resides external to the
content of documents, it is also easy for servers to give 3D-savvy
clients the 3D spatial coordinates and orientation of objects in a
gopher directory. This means that we can both synthesize 3D scenes
from existing non-3D-savvy Gopher servers, and take advanatge of
new 3D-savvy servers without reworking the contents of the
documents published in Gopher. 

Virtual world interfaces give us a powerful data visualization
tool. GopherVR makes it possible to display clustering of documents
which is not feasible on either a menu or a flat page. Combining 
GopherVR with servers that catagorize and cluster collections of 
documents will make it possible to visualize complex retationships 
within collections. To be effective, moving about the 3D scene must 
be fast and fluid, and GopherVR has been optimized for quick 
navigationn within the scene without hardware Z-buffer.


You may want to view the two Quicktime movie files to get a better 
idea of what the VR interface is all about. 



============
Announcement
============

GopherVR 0.2 for X is now available

With this software you can browse Gopher directories by driving around
Gopherspace, navigate between gopher servers by driving through a
series of 3D scenes, open items by clicking on them, get overviews of
the neighborhood you are in, and view meta-information about items.

Because this is an alpha-test release, we are still working on
the software and will be doing frequent bugfix releases. Use it 
at your own risk, and please send us bug reports and comments. 

Binary versions are available for the following platforms:

SunOS 4.1.3_U1
Solaris 2.4 (sparc and X86)
Irix 5.3
AIX 3.2.5
Linux
DEC OSF/1 2.1


New Features in GopherVR v0.2 for X
-----------------------------------

* Implemented Gopher Searches. You'll need this version to check out
the document clustering server.

* Implemented "Open Location" (aka Open URL) dialog boxes.

* Fixed some memory allocations bugs.

* GopherVR now runs on Linux and DEC OSF 2.1.

* Sound code now works on SGIs

* History listing now indents items.

* Changed initial orientation for splash screen.

* Miscellaneous fixes and speedups.