Blog

Welcome to Open Exhibits 2.0

The new site and software development kit (SDK) are here. Both are brand new and built from the ground up.

Open Exhibits 2.0
The new SDK took more than a year to develop and it has a number of new and exciting features. Open Exhibits 2.0 has greatly improved gesture analysis and processing at its core. It also has support for the Gesture Markup Language, an XML-schema that allows developers to define gestures and interactions. (You can learn more in the Gesture Library section of the site, or visit GestureML.org.)

The Open Exhibits SDK also supports a new markup language called CreativeML, which is an open standard for defining object creation, management, and interaction within a multiuser / mulititouch environment. The new software components and exhibits/templates you'll find on the site are built using CML. Many more of these will be rolled out over the next few weeks--with new additions in just the next few days. (You can learn more about Creative Markup Language at: creativeml.org)

The Open Exhibits SDK is based on the commercial GestureWorks 3 software package. The OE SDK and all other software on the site is free for museums, nonprofits, US government agencies, schools and students.  Commercial users are asked to use the GestureWorks 3 SDK and all of the OE software components, exhibits and templates can be used commercially.

The New Site
The new site was initially designed back in November and has been in production ever since. Built with WordPress and BuddyPress it has some great new features.

The big new addition is the  feature: a place to request items that you'd like to see developed or to claim items that community members have already posted. These can be software development, blog posts, research, and other items. We place cash bounties on some Wanted items (Amazon Gift Certificates too). The Tech Open Source is partnering with us on this experimental feature.

The discussion groups on the new site are much improved. We now have a general Open Exhibits Members forum and separate OE Software Support forum. We also have new profile pages with the ability to send messages and add friends.

We've simplified the software pages, making it much easier to find modules. We've also created a separate area on the site for Research and Papers--which we will be expanding in the weeks to come.

All of your feedback, suggestions and encouragement over the first year and half of the project made this "reboot" possible. Thank you. I also want to thank our Partners and Advisors for their continued help and support. Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the amazing team at Ideum who designed and developed the software and the site.