Jonathan Russ and Josh Wagoner
IdentityMine, Inc.

User Experience Design and Development
WPF
We love software

Real world application design
and development has taught us a lot…
And we like to share. 

Develop
Design
Integrate

True Graphics Designer
Microsoft Expression Design, Adobe
Illustrator, Macromedia Fireworks,
3D Modeling Tools
Owns the design assets

Software Engineer
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005
Owns the code

Part Designer, Part Developer. Coordinator.
Microsoft Expression Blend, Microsoft Visual
Studio 2005
Owns the XAML

Jonathan Russ
Director of R & D
4½ years – WPF
13 years – Software
18 years – Industry
26 years – Hobbyist
36 years – Coexisting

a.k.a., Dynamics Visualization Application
a.k.a., DynaViz

Event handlers keep objects alive
WPF registers a Changed handler for DPs of type Freezable
Set to null prior to releasing the object
MyRect.Fill = null;
MyRect = null;

There’s Strength in Weakness
Follow the weak event pattern
Use weak references

Cache and Re-use Objects

Cache Images

Decode images to their required sizes
BitmapImage.DecodePixelWidth
BitmapImage.DecodePixelHeight

Use Commands
KeyBinding
Best if stored in a common location

Focusability
Focusable Property
IsTabStop Property

Visual Cues
FocusVisualStyle Property

Control Behaviors
IsMouseOver Property
IsKeyboardFocusWithin Property

Tracking Focus
Snoop FocusManager

ChromelessWindow
ElementSnapshot
DragAndDrop
OSChecker
Zoombox

TreeGraph
RadialPanel
ForceDirectedRadialPanel
CommandTextBox
EditModeTextBlock
ImageCache

SimpleBinding and EvalBinding
(available in all Blendables™ mixes)

Real Estate Performance Management
Optimize the impact of real estate on
company performance

Development Workflow
WPF 3D
Real-world Data Sources

Designers: 1
Integrators: 1
Developers: 1-2

Designer: Comps. 3D Models.
Integrator: Styles. Templates. 2D Animations. Design
Integration.
Developer: Controls. 3D Interaction Code. Intergration
of Data Services. Code Behinds.

Feature differences between WPF 2D and 3D
Less Designer and Integrator input than other
WPF projects

Building 3D applications with WPF can be much easier
than other technologies, but…
It's still hard.

Make sure you have a good understand of 3D concepts
and terminology.
If you don't have the knowledge now, don't be afraid of 3D.
Read a book. 

Designers should be familiar with 3D Modeling tools.
ElectricRain's Zam3D
Workflow: Export developer friendly models.

Most users are not familiar with navigating 3D UI
Contrained movement to allow users easily acclimate to the
environment
2D UI to allow user to control 3D world

Input Events… or lack thereof
Hit Testing in 3D

ModelVisual3D is the most functional class in 3D
Most similar to the 2D Visual class
No support for Styles, Templates, Routed Events.

3D models do not raise events as 2D controls do
No MouseEnter, No MouseExit, No
MouseButtonDown, etc.

A UIElement is needed to raise input events. This could be
the Viewport3D itself or an element on top of the
Viewport3D
VisualTreeHelper provides support for hit testing into 3D
Models intersected by hit test are returned

We created a hit manager class that handles all hit testing
Hit manager dispatches events to the models hit
Now we could add event handlers directly to the models
when the model is added to scene for a more productive
and consistent development model

Data in the Accruent application cried out for ItemsControl
functionality.
List of data objects are returned from most service calls.
We leveraged the Blendables™ Brand ItemsContainer3D
and Carousel3D controls

Building a data bound video carousel
entirely in markup.

3DTools project on codeplex.com
Source released by Microsoft with controls enabling
interactive 2D content on 3D
The Interactive3DDecorator is the control that sits on top of
the Viewport3D in the Accruent application

Avoid TileBrushes whenever possible in your 3D scene
When a model with a TileBrush in its material is not visible
remove it form the scene
RenderOptions.CachingHint attached property

Real world data sources can be slow
Waiting on data can freeze ambient animations and result
in a poor user experience

Dispatcher.Invoke
Dispatcher.BeginInvoke
Do processing on background threads and update
dependency properties

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