With the advent of powerful XR it is imperative that we develop as open an ecosystem to encourage innovation in how we interact with our knowledge. To this end, I suggest a minimalist spatial knowledge format, named ‘Spatial Visual-Meta’ for convenience — the name is not important, this is not a branding exercise — the need for a minimalist format which you can think of as ‘plain text for spatial knowledge’ or a spatial lattice, is important.
There will be many formats for ‘rich’ data for specialized uses. There is currently no simple open format for spatialized knowledge. It’s not hard to create one, this is based on BibTeX and is stored in JSON with simplest X, Y, Z coordinates. What matters is that something like this is used.
This might look technical but I promise you it is not — this is part of the shaping of future human thought.
This might sound grand, and it is, but it is a focus on the smallest, most minimalists ways we can share spatial information. It does not concern itself with richer formats. It is trying to do very little, but to do it usefully.
The Specification | Sample JSON
Soon, thinking spaces will open up and be free from only being presented to us in the little frames of our smartphones, laptops, desktops and even projectors, and exist anywhere we choose, accessible through powerful, lightweight, affordable augmented reality glasses. The future is not the heavy and expensive headsets of today, the future of thinking spaces is as light as space itself.
Proof of Concept
It is being implemented in Author for visionOS, as well as supported in Author for macOS, where any spatial configurations are maintained and not discarded.
I chose visionOS since it easily integrates with the work users are already doing with my software on macOS and the Apple Vision Pro is an extremely high powered and visual high quality device. I am reminded of Alan Kay who supported researchers working in prototypes of tomorrow’s environments.
Testing is ongoing in Author, where the format will be exportable from. This is a recent test, February 2026:
Knowledge Space
The next development, as as we polish the interactions in Author, is to build a visionOS ‘Knowledge Space’ application which imports the Minimalist Spatial Knowledge JSON. This is not something I can afford to do on my own, so this web page is presented as an invitation to join me in realizing the vision of a truly open, minimalist spatial format that is so light weight it can even be embedded in traditional academic papers to expand the papers into 3D for the user when desired.
