A Display on the Desktop is Worth Ten Down the Hall
Desktop machines are getting faster, but there are always going to be some
features that are only available on the rare, high-end machine down the hall.
- The graphics programmer is drawn towards the high-end machine down the hall
- The user is reluctant to leave his cozy chair
- With our multi-window, multi-platform environments,
the user will be increasingly relunctant to walk down the hall
- If you want your tools to be heavily used, develop for the average desktop
Don't Forget the Hard Copy
You can do amazing things with
- pick interaction
- mouse and dial driven zoom and rotate
- multiple windows
But don't forget that when the user likes a result
- they want to take a hard copy to their working group down the hall
An analogous problem used to exist when we all had color monitors
but no color printers.
Yes, of Course, there is Some Use for the High-End Machine
The above should not be taken to mean that there is no value to having
a few high-end machines.
- In a field that is all about basic research, we should accept the
basic research value of having a few high-end graphics machines.
- Tools developed for today's high-end machines become desktop tools
some years later.
- Remember the expensive Grinell touch panels that we used to drive
detectors years ago. Though we hardly use touch panels today, we use ideas
developed there on our now standard mouse-driven systems.
So do experiment with high-end systems, but if you want your tools to be
heavily used today, develop for the average desktop.
Towards Future HEP Event Displays
Joseph Perl
7 August 1995