3D Cricket

The technology blog Read/Write web has a nice post about new 3D visualization technology on CricInfo.

I'm going to try it out tomorrow during the battle to determine who gets to lose in the tri-series finals in Australia.

I expect the visualization to be somewhat limited. My wildest hope would be that it would be as good as watching live hawkeye trajectories. We'll see how it goes. I'll have the ABC cricket radio on RealPlayer, a browser tab on the BBC scorecard, a browser tab on the BBC live text, and a browser window with the CricInfo 3D flash control. We'll see whether that enhances my cricket-following or makes my computer explode. ;-)


UPDATE:

My computer did not explode, but I found that the experience, while holding out some promise for the future, is not quite ready yet. What would make it a compelling experience would be showing the field settings (even if the fielders, other than the one who stops or catches the ball, don't move) and synchronized radio coverage. Right now the experience of one of reading a ball-by-ball update and watching computer-model batsmen take runs. If I listen to the radio I can use my imagination to visualize two batsmen crossing, so I didn't get a lot out of this, especially since the radio coverage was ahead of the 3D model.