Abstract: Pad++: Advances in Multiscale Interfaces

Benjamin B. Bederson, Larry Stead Bell Communications Research 445 South Street Morristown, NJ 07960 (bederson@bellcore.com, lstead@bellcore.com)

James D. Hollan Computer Science Department University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131 (hollan@cs.unm.edu) Pad++: Advances in Multiscale Interfaces

KEYWORDS

Interactive user interfaces, multiscale interfaces, multimedia authoring, information navigation, hypertext, information visualization.

ABSTRACT

We have implemented an infinite resolution multimedia sketchpad as a base for exploring a stream-of-consciousness model of computation where information creating, sharing and retrieval becomes so intuitive that the interface becomes invisible. Motivation to pursue this came from work on Pad [4], which can be thought of as a kind of traditional sketchpad or windows environment in the sense that it is a general-purpose substrate for visualizing two dimensional graphics and text. But Pad also supports the radical notion of being infinite in extent and resolution.

We implemented Pad++ to explore smooth zooming for navigation and to serve as a platform for multimedia authoring and information visualization. The ability to work with very large datasets has been a primary design consideration in the development of Pad++.

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I'm at UNM most of the time at bederson@cs.unm.edu

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