Numbers

The Three Dimensions

• First dimension: a line with no width
• Second dimension: a plane
• Third dimension: something with volume

How It's Used

"Inside the windowless brick buildings of a defense compound in a quiet Bethesda residential neighborhood, the war in Kosovo is being fought in darkened rooms, on computer screens and in three dimension...

"Bethesda workers also have produced three-dimensional terrain visualization computer programs that have played a key role in the Balkan conflicts. This technology was used to help negotiators come up with the demarcation lines that produced the Dayton Accords, the 1995 agreement that ended the war in Bosnia. Now, in darkened offices at Bethesda, remarkably realistic depictions of valleys and mountains in Kosovo flash by on computer screens. NATO pilots at Aviano Air Base in Italy are using the program to rehearse for bombing runs over Yugoslavia. 'A pilot can see where he's going to be flying,' said Gregory Glewwe, a cartographer involved in the project."

"Googling the Earth just got more realistic. The Mountain View Internet titan released a new, more user-friendly version of its uber-popular Google Earth on Monday. The latest version offers higher resolution satellite images and covers much more ground.

"You can download it for free at earth.google.com. One of the upgrade's cooler features: more verisimilitude. You can now see buildings in three dimensions without donning 3-D glasses. A file format allows Google Earth travelers to share three-dimensional models of buildings and landscapes. Because the new version covers four times more terrain, about a third of the world's peeps can now get a bird's-eye view of their homes and favorite haunts."

"For the past decade, Disney has struggled in the animation world, churning out a series of increasingly disappointing films that culminated in the expensive 2002 flop 'Treasure Planet.' As it clung to its traditional hand-drawn style of animation, Disney lost audiences and talent to newcomers like Pixar and DreamWorks Animation SKG, which led a new wave of three-dimension animation crafted on computers. Even News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox's computer-animated 'Ice Age' series has at times topped Disney's performance."

“But 'Shrek' does not avoid the watery fate that commonly befalls good cartoons that are dragged into the third dimension. What seems blithe and fluid on screen becomes lumbering when it takes on the weight of solid human flesh.”

"Built on the beefy Unreal 3 graphics engine, the gameplay is two-dimensional but the graphics are in lush three dimension[s]—wilderness, warehouse, cavern and corridor all presented with a Grade-A, high-definition depth and fidelity you'd never expect in a Live Arcade game that costs $15. It actually feels kind of unfair, like the entry in a Grade 6 science fair that was obviously put together by your engineer dad."

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