[tweetmeme]In a world where 3D projection is becoming a near reality—this year’s CES was all about advances in 3D technology—it’s only inevitable that the software in our computers slowly etches on to the third dimension. The Mac OS X Dock went 3D with Leopard, and a series of patent filings show Apple is working on a full-on 3D interface for OS X (or maybe XI). There is of course no stopping third party developers from taking things into their own hands, and bringing 3D implementations to the Desktop. BumpTop, originally a 3D desktop on Windows, has finally released its Mac client.

Upon launch, BumpTop replaces your standard flat desktop into a 3 dimensional perspective desktop, with walls on 3 sides. It looks pretty. You can rearrange icons, increase their size, move them onto the walls (where they change perspective accordingly), and rearrange them into groups. If you fling an icon into a corner, it collides into other icons bringing physics into play. BumpTop features some other neat organisational features. You can ‘stack’ similar icons together automatically, or pile icons you think belong to a single group. Everything is fluid, simple, and in many ways more efficient than the standard desktop.

The goal behind BumpTop, is to use your computer desktop like a real desktop. So all your current files would reside on your desktop instead of having them in your Documents or any other projects folder. You would keep your important pictures pinned to one of the side walls, bookmarks on the other side, and group up files from a projects into stacks.

All of this would be great, if it weren’t in 3D. Apart from the poor rendering quality of icons—blurry text, yuck!—3D doesn’t really sit well right now. Everything else you’re interacting with is in 2D, so the sudden shift into 3D gives everything a weird perspective. One moment you’re seeing a folder icon rendered with perspective, another moment it’s completely flat in a Finder window. Thirdly, the 3D doesn’t really do anything for your workflow. Interacting with icons in 3D might be fun on a touchscreen tablet, but the desk perspective doesn’t feel any more real or immersive than the standard flat desktop. Thankfully, BumpTop does offer a 2D mode. Double clicking any of the surfaces brings it straight up front. However, the rendering is still a little fuzzy for my liking.

Fuzzy BumpTop rendered text on the left; crisp text and icon rendered by Mac OS X.

BumpTop’s design principles remind me of this piece by Luke Mathias, on realism in user interface design. His basic idea as I understand it, is realism in user interface is about porting what’s real, into an acceptable concept in the software world. The two need not—and in most cases cannot—be the same. Where our regular old desktop has files, pens, scraps of paper, and coffee cups, our computer desktop need not be an exact copy of that. It does have files and folders, and it could include some tools as well, but ultimately modes of interaction require that they’re presented differently.

Lastly, and this is more of a personal preference, I don’t like having things cluttering up my desktop. I enjoy having a vibrant wallpaper adoring my screen, so I block out all icons using something like Camouflage or HyperSpaces. To access any files, there’s always the desktop stack, or Spotlight. BumpTop’s philosophy is built around having a busy desktop, as it evident from the screenshot adoring their homepage. Moreover, BumpTop doesn’t come with any “hazel like” organisational features. If you’ve saved a bunch of files to your desktop, prepare to be welcomed by a pile of icons one over the other bang in the middle of your desktop.

BumpTop is a free download, but upgrading to the Pro version ($29) brings in additional features like ‘find as you type’ and multi-touch gestures. It’s a cool app to try out, and if you like it, no one’s stopping you from going pro. If this kind of application interests you, I’d highly recommend you try out Grape as well [Update: Grape is still in private beta, so BumpTop it is!]