United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple patent describes the implementation of a three-dimensional virtual space on the screen smartphones and tablets.The document says that users will be able to interact with the 3D-interface using gestures and without touching the touch screen. This approach, according to developers, will facilitate navigation on the displays of mobile devices.
To determine the orientation of the interface in space and its position relative to the observer technology involves the use of built-in sensors. In addition, it is planned to use a special database gestures.
"When the user holds the mobile device in front of you, the interface shows the standard state. In this case, the camera is pointed straight to the rear wall of 3D-space operating system. If the user begins to rotate clockwise or smartphone counterclockwise, the camera also changes in the direction from one side wall to another".
According to the description of the technology, it can be based on one or more graphics chips Nvidia or three-dimensional graphics engine such as OGRE. However, as we know, the main partner of Apple, the company Imagination Technologies, introduced the next-generation graphics core PowerVR Series7 , which promises significant performance gains and could easily provide rendering 3D-interface.
This patent portfolio from Apple, pertaining to the three-dimensional user interface. In August this year was published application describes the technology of creating and managing 3D-objects on the screen of the iPhone and iPad.
According to the authors of the patent, the operating system iOS can be used for this built-in sensors such as accelerometer and gyroscope. The user can control the volume interface elements on the screen of iDevices or 3D-objects viewed from different angles, simply by tilting the device in your hands. A simpler technique known as "parallax effect" was introduced in iOS 7.
In the future, 3D-interface can be used in smart phones and tablet computers Apple.