3B - Window shopping on the web in 3D

Get started

Introducing the three views
The 3B browser provides three views. To change between views, click on the relevant thumbnail in the 3B control panel.

3B view
A 3-D city of websites you can wander around

Web view
A conventional browser to navigate the inside pages of any site

Map view
A bird's-eye view of the city
you are in

Start the 3B browser
Check that your broadband connection to the Internet is up and running. Click on the 3B icon on your desktop (or in the folder where you saved the downloaded application).

In the 3B view

Your starting point
The browser starts you in the 3B view. The many tall, colorful buildings indicate you are in the downtown area of TheCity.

Seeing where you are in the city
On the right side of the 3B toolbar is a mini-map of the city you are in. The black dot on the mini-map is your location. The orange beam shows the direction you are facing.

For a large scale mini-map of your location, click on the word district. For a small scale mini-map of the whole city, click on city.

Moving around the city
Use the four arrow keys in the lower right corner of your keyboard to move around. The 'up' key moves you forward. The 'left' and 'right' keys make you turn. The 'down' key moves you back. To shuffle side-to-side while facing forward, press the < or > key (next to 'm' on most English keyboards).

Viewing a window close up
To view a window 'face on' and bring it into focus: re-position yourself so the target window overlaps the center of your display and press the space bar.

An alternative method is to click on the target window with your cursor. If you click a second time on any window, you will switch to the web view, which is a conventional web browser.

In the Map view

To switch to the map view, click on the mini-map in the toolbar.

Pop-up lists of window content
Move your cursor slowly over the large map (not the mini-map) to see small pop-up lists of website names.

To draw a route between your location and any 3B destination, move your cursor over the pop-up name (or over the highlight on the block's perimeter) and click.

Traveling along a route
Take a taxi (moving automatically at high speed) or a stroll (moving manually at normal speeds). To take a taxi, click on the pop-up taxi button that appears when you select a destination on the large map, or click 'start' under TAXI on the 3B toolbar.

Take a stroll by clicking 'stroll' under ROUTE on the 3B control panel, and follow the route marked on the street in the 3B view.

Finding an area of interest
Related websites tend to locate near one another. From the pull-down menu select a Category.

Where the category is a primary description of a website, the location is highlighted in red. Where the category is only a secondary description, the location is a lighter red.

Other ways to use the map
Enter a keyword, name, street name or URL for any 3B destination, press find, and relevant websites within the city will be highlighted in red.

Alternatively, from the pull-down menu, select a Landmark, and that one window will be highlighted in red. Many locations around the landmark will have related websites.

In the Web view

Built into 3B is a conventional web browser. To view the other pages of a website displayed in the 3B city, double click on it. Alternatively, press the space bar to view the page face on, followed by clicking on the window. To move any time to the Web view (and the last site you saw in it), click on the left thumbnail on the 3B control panel.

To return to the 3B view (and your last position in the city), click on the top right thumbnail.

Click here for an Advanced Quick Start tutorial. For detailed help, select Help from the pull-down menus in the upper right corner of the 3B browser window.

You're now ready to go 3B browsing! Have fun and explore.