This amazing demo shows off some new features of soon-to-be-released WPF v3. (WPF is big brother to Microsoft SilverLight)
3D sphere in transparent window with per-pixel hit testing!
These are some of the features I can remember off the top of my head (that blow off the top of my head!):
- Transparent windows with per-pixel hit-testing. This means, for example, you can have a 3D model floating on your desktop (with no window), and mouse clicks are so accurate you can click between gaps in the 3D model and grab applications behind (see video @ ~8:00).
- Supports fully interactive 2D UI elements on 3D surfaces. The demo shows buttons, textboxes, scrollbars, tick boxes… all being used on a 3D cloth simulation (see video @ ~6:00).
- Full integration with DirectX/3D. This means elements of existing 3D games (think World of Warcraft, Halo or the Sims) and applications can be used seamlessly within a WPF app and vice versa.
- Programmable pixel shaders for hardware accelerated special effects. Imagine a video playing on a 3D plane, with a real time chroma key / transparency … all without taxing the CPU (see video @ ~10:45). Translation – you will be able to apply any photoshop filter in realtime to your UI elements.
- Writeable bitmap. Fast access to a traditional bitmap image for custom software rendering. Perfect for creating 2D bitmap games, paint programs etc.
There are a ton of other features but I wont bore you.
Not that these demos show anything that would necessasily be sane to do in real life – the exercise is left to the reader to imagine how these powerful features could be applied to create stunning, compelling, revolutionary, intuitive user experiences.
Who is going to be the first to harness WPF to its true potential? I have yet to see anything close to being a killer WPF application… but these upcoming features really leave imagination as the last remaining obstacle.
When a team with the right combination of creative & tech finally get stuck into WPF the results are going to be spectacular.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I for one certainly dont want to go near another microsoft product – they cause me nothing but pain. Long live flash!
So you watched the video then?
Give Expression Blend a go
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=32A3E916-E681-4955-BC9F-CFBA49273C7C&displaylang=en
Thats the designer tool for WPF, written in WPF! Personally I find it quite impressive for such a young product and it has very little pain!
I am also a WPF fan, You can directly contact with me by MSN: zhoujiguo1985@live.cn. so we can instantly
communicate with each other. thanks.
WPF has taken my breath away. I didn’t know what it was 3 days ago, and I have started experimenting in it and going indepth and I am fascinated by its flexibility, ease of use, functionality and extensibility. I have done lots of programming before, but was completely new to C# and WPF 3 days ago…
I have already created a skinnable interface with built in animations and custom buttons and nice shading – as well as a full 3d demo in my app!
The concepts of data binding and dynamic resources blow my hair back – especially compared to the Borland C++ builder interface I used 5 years back!