Matthew William Curry's dashboard

Adding to the customizeabillity and fun of Bumptop, allowing 3D games would be one more feature bumptop could proudly boast. Im not saying it would be a nessecesarily usefull feature for organizing, but it would just be another feature that users would get to have.

It would be really cool if you could play games with your icons, like Shuffle board, Bowling, hockey, tetris, jenga, soccer, etc. And when the user selects one of the games, the icons would take note of their current location, then move into position for the game, and then when the user exits the game the icons would go back to the origional position.

Syncronizing your webcam to your desktop would be the ultimate feature for bumptop. Basically, if you have a webcam, you would position it to view the desired spot on your desktop in the real world. After which, the user would probably have to specify angles and edges as well as surfaces and objects. The desktop background would be what the camera sees, and your icons would interact with the onscreen image of your desktop.

If possible, you could take this to the next step by constantly logging the cameras position by seeing which direction the pixels are moving. This in response: When the camera is moved to the left, the icons would slide to the right, as to appear they are physically planted on the desktop.

While moving the camera, other icons would come into view that you had origionally placed out of view before. So basically its like a real desktop, just the only way you can see your icons is if the camera is looking at the position on your desk where the icons digitally are.

Inorder to accomplish the digital physics, icon angleing, etc, you can do this several ways. But keep in mind the main goal is to keep this as user friendly as possible. Heres 2 ways i have thought of that would be the easiest to program:
1) Make the user draw lines on the image of the real desktop, tracing the physical faces of the real desk. The angles would include the Borders of the desk, the front face, the desk surface(that icons would be on), the borders of the camera's view, and current camera position. This will tell what the icons are on, where they are, when they are about to fall off the desk, and where the are on the screen.
2)(harder) Allow the user to make a 3D model of the desk and position a representation of a camera so the program knows what its looking at.

Thank you for reading this please discuss your ideas,this idea would be really cool, however it would be completely different from bumptop and take a LOT of time.

I have some ideas that would be cool if added to the program. Heres some that i thought would be pretty cool for the basic tech savy guy/girl:

Allowing users to import 3D models from a variety of programs such as, 3D Max, Maiya, and if possible Google Sketchup, to allow the commen user to utilize this feature. The models would be able to be put on the desktop and interact with the icons; like if you create a christmas tree, you could import it and decorate your computer for Christmas.

Having interactive pre-made terrains to choose from would make dragging the icons more realistic and fun than ever. The user would select from a list that could be updated either by users or by your team, and they would be able to choose what kind of terrain the want. Or even better, they could turn the terrain on seasonal, which would scroll through the list according to the time of year it is. For example: if its Fall, there would be leaves on the desktop, the icons would be able to push the leaves around on impact creating a realistic feeling for the user. Or if its christmas time, it would be snowy, and the icons would drag through the snow, creating a path that had been traversed. But the most basic terrain would be dust, or dirt, wich would stir dust when dragged through.

Those where all i could come up with so far, If you like them i could continue to give ideas, thank you for taking the time to read this.

Sincerely,

Matthew W. Curry