Blog

Open Exhibits Meetup at the British Museum!

Join us! Open Exhibits senior developer, Paul Lacey and I will be at the British Museum in London on October 27th. There will be an open house from 11AM to 4:00PM in the Samsung Digital Learning Centre.

We will have a Microsoft Kinect set up and you can try the Open Exhibits TUIO Kinect with the Gigapixel Viewer and the Panoramic Viewer.

In addition we will have an MT55 Platform Multitouch Table on site and we'll be looking a variety of multitouch software including our new experimental networking project, code-named "Heist." (More on that very soon.)

If you plan on attending we'd love to meet you. Please contact us directly: Jim Spadaccini and Paul Lacey.

If you're in the US want to connect, I will be presenting Open Exhibits at a panel discussion at the Association of Science-Technology Center's annual conference in Baltimore on October 18th. I will also be presenting at the Tech Museum's Interfaces for the New Decade event in San Jose, California on November 15th.

Building a Better Collection Viewer: Part 2

Last month I wrote a post about our plans for developing a new and more robust Collection Viewer. Since then we've met and discussed the design of this new software with our museum partners from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and the Don Harrington Discovery Center. We've also involved exhibit developers from the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center to get their take on this. 

We refined our designs from the initial one we posted last month and focused on a set priorities for features. First off, everyone agreed that the ability to browse was more important than searching. Again, remember this is for a multitouch, multiuser exhibit for the museum floor, so (temporarily) dropping an onscreen keyboard and the ability to search while focusing on browsing makes sense.

The number of potential "thumbnail" views in dock was also reduced to one primary view to start; one with larger thumbnails with short titles. Again, our partners felt that titles, even if they were truncated, were very important include.

The biggest change was adding some ability to view "sets" of images. This feature will allow museum visitors to pull out related images or to view a "narrative" associated with a series of images.

Finally, we added the ability to hide and show the browsing dock and you'll notice some other refinements. We're not done yet, but you should see that things have progressed nicely in the designs below. (You can see high resolution versions of these files on the Open Exhibits Flickr site.)

The latest design of the Collection Viewer. 

The image above shows how collections can expand and contract. All of the Collection(s) and Category information will be extensible.

An example of how "Sets" might look in the new Collection Viewer.

Another look at "Sets." 

We will begin programming the Collection Viewer in the next month. We welcome your feedback.

Upcoming conference - Interfaces for the New Decade - November 15, 2011

Hello Open Exhibits Members,

I wanted to invite you to join us for a conference focused on new interfaces for museums at: The Tech Test Zone 2011: Interfaces for the New Decade - Conference and Gallery Opening

The conference will feature speakers who are developing new interfaces using augmented reality, eye-tracking, tangible surfaces, gestural interfaces, and more.

Museum staff are eligible for a discount - use discount code museum2011 during registration.

Open Exhibits members that are not museum staff - use discount code oe2011 during registration.

Registration is open:
http://testzone2011.eventbrite.com

Connect with entrepreneurs, developers, and researchers working on cutting-edge interfaces such as:

• Augmented Reality
• Context Aware
• Deformable Surfaces
• Eye Tracking
• Feedback
• Gestural Interfaces
• Gigapixel Images
• Motion Sensing
• Multi-touch
• Natural User Interfaces
• RFID
• Smart Museum Systems
• Tablet Computers
• Ubiquitous Media

One Test Zone station will feature the Open Exhibits Gigapixel Zoom module in use with Kinect. We are all very excited to be able to install somem of these cutting-edge interfaces in an experimental way. The full conference description is below, and I'll be updating the registration page with additional details and speakers as I get them.

See you there!

Bob Ketner

Find out how museums and other public-space designers can use these technologies to enhance visitor learning and experience.
Experience the interactives firsthand at the opening of The Tech Test Zone Gallery, a new gallery dedicated to temporary exhibitions of prototypes from corporate, academic, and nonprofit partners.
 
Agenda:
(Subject to change. Details to be posted soon.)
10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Includes:
- Speakers
- Press conference
- Lunch
- Workshop
- Gallery Opening (evening program from 6:00 p.m. on)

Speakers:
- Ori Inbar, CEO, Ogmento
- Christopher Stapleton, Creative Venture Catalyst, Simiosys
- Jim Spadaccini, Director, Ideum, and Principal Investigator,
  Open Exhibits
- Ross Smith, PhD, Deputy Director, Wearable Computer Laboratory
  University of South Australia
- Tamara Schwarz, Senior Manager of Experience Design, Chabot Space
  & Science Center
- John MacDuffie Woodburn, Co-Developer, Pixel, and Graduate Student,   University of the Arts, PA
- Matt Miller, Co-Developer, Pixel
- Bob Ketner, Curator, The Tech Test Zone

Call for Participation:
The Tech Test Zone is developed through The Tech Virtual (http://www.thetechvirtual.org), an online museum design community dedicated to advancing the art and science of exhibit design, and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The Tech Virtual  is an open platform where artists, companies, designers, experts, hobbyists, videographers, and other creative people from around the world can directly connect with museum projects.

To suggest an interactive for future Tech Test Zone exhibitions, just start a Project at: http://www.thetechvirtual.org/requests/test-zone-2011

Volunteer:
There is a need for volunteers for this event. Please send an inquiry using the "contact the host" button if you are interested.
Discounts:
All discount codes expire November 10, 2011.
Museum Professionals: Use discount code musuem2011 
Students: Use discount code student2011

Speaker Bios:

Ori Inbar, CEO, Ogmento
Ori is co-founder and CEO of Ogmento, a developer and publisher of mobile augmented reality experiences; Author of Games Alfresco – the #1 blog for augmented reality; President of the Augmented Reality (AR) Consortium – an international group of pioneering AR companies dedicated to advancing the AR industry through collaboration. Ori is a recognized speaker in industry events and co-founded the Augmented Reality Event – the largest event dedicated exclusively to the AR industry.

Christopher Stapleton, Creative Venture Catalyst, Simiosys
Christopher Stapleton is an entrepreneur, educator, inventor and artist who explores the power of human experience augmented by the emerging technology of Mixed Reality. Trained as a designer he has led interdisciplinary creative teams to stimulate the innovation life-cycle to more effectively transform radical ideas into viable solutions. His background includes the founding of the UCF Media Convergence Laboratory, producing theme parks world wide and designing for theater, feature films & television in the New York City. He is currently creating the national model of the Mixed Reality Experiential Learning Landscape for NASA and NSF ISE (STEM).

Jim Spadaccini, Director, Ideum, and Principal Investigator, Open Exhibits
Before founding Ideum, Jim was the Director of Interactive Media at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. While at the Exploratorium, his department was responsible for developing educational Web resources and media exhibits for the museum floor. For his work at the Exploratorium, he received a Smithsonian Computerworld Award, an Association of Science and Technology Centers Award for Innovation and three consecutive Webby Awards for “Best Science Site.” Jim taught courses on design and technology at SFSU’s Multimedia Studies Program for seven years starting in the mid-90s and currently teaches for the Cultural Resource Management Program at University of Victoria, British Columbia and the Technology-Enhanced Communication for Cultural Heritage (TEC-CH) program at the University of Lugano, Switzerland.

Ross Smith, PhD, Deputy Director, Wearable Computer Laboratory University of South Australia
Ross Smith, PhD, is an engineer with extended experience in developing electro-mechanical prototypes to support new forms of human-computer interaction. His research includes deformable surfaces, spatial augmented reality, input device hardware development and user interface design.  Ross is the lead researcher of the patented deformable sensor “Digital Foam” that was invented during his doctoral studies. The future goal is to incorporate the Digital Foam sensor into medical training, industrial design devices, and other interface applications where touch is important.
Ross' vision of computer interaction employs deformable devices that can be squashed, twisted and manipulated to create a rich set of gestures to support new form of human-computer interaction.
Ross supervises doctorate, honors, and undergraduate students at the Wearable Computer Laboratory in South Australia, and manages the Computer and Information Science prototype workshop which employs  a variety of advanced production machines such as 3D printers, printed circuit board (PCB) and computer assisted design (CAD) machining tools in developing research prototypes.

Tamara Schwarz,  Senior Manager of Experience Design, Chabot Space & Science Center
Tamara Schwarz is the Senior Manager of Experience Design at Chabot Space & Science Center. She leads all aspects of design and development of Chabot’s major visitor experiences and other public spaces, including permanent and temporary/traveling exhibitions, programming in the planetarium, large-screen theater, and observatories, and digital media for online learning. She serves as project director for Bill Nye’s Climate Lab, an award-winning interactive climate education exhibition and website launched by Chabot in 2010.
Tamara has more than a decade of experience developing exhibitions, multimedia, and web projects on science and historical topics. She has also worked on exhibition and media-based informal science education collaborations with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Space Sciences Institute, and KQED Public Broadcasting. She participates in regional and national museum networks and serves as vice president of Cultural Connections, a Northern California consortium for museum professionals.

John MacDuffie Woodburn, Co-Developer, Pixel and Graduate Student  University of the Arts, PA
Bio coming soon.

Matt Miller, Co-Developer, Pixel
Bio coming soon.

Bob Ketner, Curator, The Tech Test Zone
Bio coming soon.

Hashtag: #ttz2011

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Panel Discussion at the ASTC Conference in October

Next month I will be on a panel at the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) conference in Baltimore. The session is entitled, Innovative Collaborative Development and Sharing of Educational Resources Online.

Here's the description:

Come learn about some of the innovative informal science education projects that are making it easier to share ideas, practices, and formats. Projects featured include the NSDL SMILE Pathway, the NISE Network, and Open Exhibits. Topics will include sharing of free materials that can be easily adapted by your institution.

The session will be on Tuesday, October 18, 2011 from 9:00 AM to 10:15 AM. If you're at ASTC please stop by.

You can learn more about the ASTC 2011 conference on their website.

Immersive Photography

Gigalinc was an exhibition that allowed exhibition participants to interactively explore large-scale panoramic images. High-definition gigapixel images (1000 times the information captured by a 1 megapixel digital camera) were digitally projected onto a large screen that allowed viewers to navigate using kinect based hand-gestures, zooming in and out of areas of particular interest. Surround-sound audio accompaniments added to the multi-sensory experience.

I was interested in exploring the world of immersive photography and the possibilities it offers for changing the way we look at and use photographic images. I did this through digital technologies that allows the viewer to ‘step inside’ and move around large panoramic images, presented in astonishing levels of detail. As the perspective changes, the viewer feels as if he or she is actually ‘immersed’ in the scene. Participants also had the opportunity to print out their own image of what they found interesting/appealing and add to a pin board to create a collage of interest.

The technology used consisted of several features. The hand tracking utilized Xbox Kinect (Open Exhibits MT-Kinect) to input gesture based commands. Open Exhibits is a great enabler for these types of projects and worked brilliantly. Arduino was also used to allow the participants to select their image just by tapping one touch-pad on the floor. Arduino was also responsible for allowing the participant to print out his or her own image. By using these technologies and others, I was able to build an 'immersive framework'. See the results in the video below.