System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £12.39
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement)
Genre: Tool/App
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers
Best Playing Position: Standing or Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: We live in 3D. Our thinking is patterned from this three-dimensional world. Putting mental notes on paper or drawing diagrams on flat surfaces means a lot is lost in translation. With Noda use your spatial thinking and interact naturally with information. Shape your knowledge and Map your understanding. Noda maps have a simple structure. Shapes hold concepts and Links show relationships between them. This format supports a wide range of topics, anything where relationships between concepts is important.
Review: Is your desk littered with post-it notes and the office whiteboards all filled with idea roads and work plans? Wouldn’t it be better if all that work could be in one space so you can mind map it and lay them out to help understand the plan a little better? NODA offers just that. It’s a virtual workspace that allows you to see workflows and data mapping a little clearer.
You start by using the Oculus Touch controllers to make thought bubbles and given them names (via a virtual keyboard) then you can add in some media and connect them all up while moving them around to your heart’s content. Maybe make a screenplay flow, make a work plan or even plan events all with just the squeeze and pull of the controller.
Noda is a brave attempt to make a virtual mind map workstation that only fails because VR is limited at the moment. The virtual keyboard is not even worth mentioning as is the ability for network workspaces where lots of people can work on the same idea. There is no doubt in my mind that someone will find this program very useful, but maybe it is a little too far ahead of its time.
