A Simple Online Tool for 3D Mental Rotation Training

[Vic]

Hi all,

After an unsuccessful search for a simple-to-use tool for training my 3D mental rotation capability, I developed one myself and would like to share with all those who are interested here. I only had a couple of hours to work on the tool and so it's still very primitive with lots of room for further improvement. Feedback in any form is welcome and if enough people are interested, I can also open source it.

http://vample.com/tools/mental-rotation/

Cheers,

Victor Yan

[hiphopo...@yahoo.com]

Great game! Thank you for making this. I hope this type of intelligence can be improved. I wonder if anyone here has noticed dual n back or any other type of n backing improving their visual spatial skills.

[Tsvetan Dimoff]

Hey, excellent work! Are you a web dev? Will test it out and see how it goes.

[polar]

Looks great, thanks! I've built something similar few years ago during our research - we used Processing environment, but there were imported objects involved, so we just compiled it to desktop apps for win, Linux and Mac. Here's a screenshot:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/e39f4qezrb6lk9n/newPicz.png?dl=0

Btw, sometimes the object you display is not visible because of the way it is rotated - maybe simple check of color content should do the trick (say, at least the 25% of surface area should be visible).

[Alex Lewis]

Excellent program.  Managed 9/9 in 60 seconds with 12 cubes.  What do I win?

[Pontus Granström]

Where can I get it?

On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 2:37 AM Alex Lewis <alexis.di...@gmail.com> wrote:

Excellent program.  Managed 9/9 in 60 seconds with 12 cubes.  What do I win?

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[Stephen Wartel]

Hi Vic,

I am a new group member, a social worker interested in aiding in the creation, development of mental rotation web-based apps (HTML, CSS, JS) to help people.

Can you share and open source your innovative mental-rotation tool, provide a link (for example, to a mental-rotation GitHub repository) so the source files can be cloned/downloaded?

Much appreciated.

Stephen

[Abc]

3 versions of 3D N Back: https://github.com/4skinSkywalker/3D-N-back?tab=readme-ov-file

I haven't tested them, I don't know if they contain what you're looking for

[Abc]

Also, there are the files from author's tool.

https://vample.com/tools/mental-rotation/plot.js

https://vample.com/tools/mental-rotation/ui.js

https://vample.com/tools/mental-rotation/style.css

https://vample.com/tools/mental-rotation/scripts.js

HTML file: https://pastebin.com/SEm5ZY5K

But I still recommend looking into https://github.com/4skinSkywalker/3D-N-back?tab=readme-ov-file

On Thursday, December 7, 2023 at 6:12:12 PM UTC+1 Stephen Wartel wrote:

[Stephen Wartel]

Thank you for these suggestions. The 3D N Back look interesting, and I can check further on it.

However, if still possible (I noticed that his original posting is ~7 years old), given the type of mental rotation exercises identified in research articles coming online in the last few years, if Vic responds to these postings, open-sources his vample.com mental rotation tool, makes it available by link, for example to a GitHub repository, that would be helpful. It is a nice, basic exercise, and with some adapting would likely meet the exercise criteria for helping people prevent acute/posttraumatic stress disorder, especially intrusive flashbacks:

for example, see: Kanstrup, M., Singh, L., Göransson, K.E. et al. (2021). Reducing intrusive memories after trauma via a brief cognitive task intervention in the hospital emergency department: an exploratory pilot randomised controlled trial. Transl Psychiatry 11, 30 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-020-01124-6.

Does anyone have his contact email? If sent to me at 3principles at gmail.com, I would try to write to him to ask.

Best Wishes,

[Stephen Wartel]

BTW, the only other tool that I found which may also work, is at: https://github.com/0xf00ff00f/rotator.

It requires compilation to web type files that could be uploaded/used on a website (HTML, CSS, JS, WASM?) for easy user accessibility, which compilation, given my limited skill level with C++, web assembly and CMake, even after a lot of online reading, is beyond my ability. Have been unable to email/reach this developer for any additional help.

[Abc]

You mean that you don't know how to compile it on your local machine and make it work?

There is another game https://4skinskywalker.github.io/Syllogimous-v3/ which has 2D and 3D spaces training in the settings (settings button is on the top left).

You can disable the other modes and only enable 2D or 3D spaces. When I did 2D spaces, I remember needing rotation, but I haven't tested 3D spaces.

[Abc]

I mean, with 2D spaces, I remember needing mental rotation, but in 2D.

[Stephen Wartel]

Hi,

"You mean that you don't know how to compile it on your local machine and make it work?"

Yes, this has been a problem for me for the past couple of weeks. I have VS 2022 Community free version. Read up (tutorials, Stack Overflow, etc.) on compiling web assembly, using Linux on Windows (Windows 11), CMake, SDL 1 & 2, Emscripten, and more packages, downloaded, configured, tried most, but always got an error (usually, even though added to the environment variable's path, 'cannot find the SDL include and library,' sometimes other errors). Nothing worked, and I really tried hard to sort this. The goal was, as the developer mentions at the bottom of his GitHub page (see Rotator link above) to compile to HTML, JS, CSS, maybe wasm. 

Not knowledgeable about the end result of this type of C+ compiling, I am not sure if this would even produce an up-loadable set of web files that would then be able to be viewed by anyone navigating to a website? I am not trying to compile for my desktop computer, but instead for web deployment (similar to the developer's demo linked above and in his GitHub page) so people needing help can navigate to it, use it as a freely-accessed prevention tool following trauma exposure (within 72 hours as per the protocol-see article cited above to a traumatic event). Several research articles have emerged recently showing that this is likely helpful in reducing subsequent intrusive flashbacks, which are a strong foundation for acute and posttraumatic stress disorder. Needs more research, but as the research demonstrates, not harmful (within some additional guidelines).

I believe that while 2D is likely helpful, 3D immersion may be more helpful (VR probably even more helpful but not as easy to access especially within 72 hours).

Thank you for the newest GitHub suggestion: I'll take a look, as well as go back to another look at the other animation's options.

Thank you again.

[Abc]

You can add me on Discord: braintraining

I succeeded in compiling it to wasm js html files, but got errors when trying to run it on the browser. I'll look into it later on by asking people who know about WASM.

For now, here is the working game from the author: https://0xf00ff00f.github.io/rotator/

And here are the WASM JS HTML files: https://github.com/universallyuniqueidentifier/rotator

[Stephen Wartel]

Maybe errors, but you got a lot further than I did! Bravo!

I took a look at the output (WASM JS HTML files), but given my very limited skill level, wasn't able to identify anything that could offer a solution. I wish that I could.

When I had asked for suggestions on a developer forum a little while back, the little feedback received encouraged me to use Linux in Windows (WSL) as a compiling platform ( instead of Emscripten ) since their feedback from looking at the developer's repository code was that it was set up for WSL. Had never tried WSL before, so facing no joy compiling with Emscripten, attempted instead to set up the WSL. As previously reported, after many tries, much troubleshooting, still wasn't successful in compiling with WSL. So maybe that suggestion was a "dead end," but given my skill level, could easily have been my doing it wrong?

If you get feedback from the people who know WASM, hopefully it will provide a quick clue to resolving any errors. Based on what you have accomplished, it may already be quite close to a solution.

Fingers crossed.

Thank you for this help.

Kind Regards,

[Abc]

You weren't doing it wrong, you just needed to do it on Linux

I'm going to look for help for WASM when my day ends, busy right now

[saratogacoach]

Added a comment at GitHub to the original Rotator repository. The developer has written back and hopefully will have additional suggestions.

[Alberto Flaño Lombardo]

Man, I'm slow. This is my first try. 

[Alberto Flaño Lombardo]

I find that the larger, the easier. Because the forms are more striking. 

I got 20/20 with 12.